Weekend recap and Meet me on Monday

What a weekend! Seriously, I think I need another weekend to recover from my weekend! 

Friday Jason took the day off to get things done around the house like cleaning and fixing our broken snow blower but his plans quickly changed when the sitter who watches KR at our house on Monday, Wednesday and Friday  text me at 5am saying her best friends boyfriend had a heart attack. I called her quickly to get the details and tell her not to worry about watching KR and be with her friend so insert daddy daycare! Jason loved getting to spend the day with KR but got nothing done around the house! Jason and KR picked me up from work and we headed to the Boat and RV show that was going on in town. You can read all about the fun we had here.

Saturday we had KR's first swimming lesson which you can read about here then I had to go to work and facilitate a retreat for my students all afternoon. We had been planing a dinner/date night with a couple of our friends for a couple of weekend and finally decided Saturday was the day! We met them for dinner at a local sports bar and watch the Panther men's basketball game then headed to their house for a few drinks and Mexican Train Domino! We ended up not getting home until after mid-night but we had a ton of fun!

Sunday we were going to go to church but KR ended up sleep in so we stayed in bed and got a little extra rest as well. We took KR's 8 month pictures which you can see them here then I headed to Local Officer Training School for the Jaycees all afternoon while Jason went to a friends house to watch football. We spend the evening doing laundry and cleaning the house and headed to bed early!

And here we are at Monday! It has been a while since I linked up with Never Growing Old for Meet me on Monday so I thought today would be a good time to go back! Feel free to head over and link up!

What is your favorite kind of fudge?

I don't like fudge, really I don't like much chocolate either. 

Weird, I know but at least it saves me calories!

Is there snow outside your window?

Yep! Not as much as has been at this time the last two winters but still more than I would like to be there! They are predicting more snow next week but I will keep my fingers crossed it misses us!

What is your favorite meal of the day?

I would say lunch, I don't really know why but I always look forward to lunch.

  Do you text on your cell phone? 

I'm a supper texter, well I used to be a lot better but then I got a touch screen and I'm super slow now! Hopefully with practice I get get my skills back!

Waffles or pancakes?

Chocolate chip pancakes!

I hope you have a fabulous Monday!

Miscellany Monday

It has been quite a few weeks since I linked up with Carissa at lowercase letters for miscellany monday but I have quite a few things on my mind today to why not!

OnE 

We had to take Miss KR to Urgent Care yesterday. She has had a runny nose for about a month now but nothing to worry about until yesterday when she developed a cough to go with the runny nose. She wasn't running a fever but she coughed though her whole nap so I though we had better go before this turned into coughing all night and no sleep for anyone! Well it turns out she has an ear infection in her right ear...poor girl! 

TwO 

This is what we woke up to today! They said is was suppose to snow over night but when I went to bed it hadn't started so I though for sure we were in the clear...nope! By my very scientific measurement (as in I stuck my finer in the snow in our drive way) we got about 7" of snow over night.  They are reporting on our local news station that we got 3" but I measured my finger and it is 7" so I'm sticking with 7"!

ThReE

We also woke up to this...

you might ask why there there is no silverware in the silverware drawer, 

well let me tell you this litlle story of a mouse/pack rat. It goes a little something like this:

A couple of days ago I found a bunch of mouse poop in the silverware drawer, on the silverware and everywhere else so I quickly washed all the silverware and put them back. Next morning, same thing but I found a piece of Beasley's dog food in the drawer so this promoted me to clean the whole drawer out and guess what I found...about 30 pieces of dog food! Are you kidding me?!? So I clean the whole drawer out again and put everything back however starting last night we started putting Beasley's food away at night instead of leaving a bowl of food out for him over night and guess what...today I wake up to more poop in my drawer! Our little friend had clearly been back by the poop and where the food was stashed is now a hole in the liner of the draw! We will be putting a mouse trap in there tonight so hopefully we can get rid of our little friend!

FoUr 

This is how I got to spend my morning! 

I had today off, thank you MLK! but I did have to come to work in the afternoon to facilitate a retreat but not before quality snuggle time with my sick little girl. It was a wonderful start to the week!

FiVe 

We found a daycare for KR! We have one really, really, really awesome babysitter that KR loves and she loves KR that come to our house but due to her school schedule this year she was only able to watch her MWF so that left us looking for someone else on TTH. After having a few issues with the other babysitters I had hired we decided it was time to find her a daycare for TTh. This would be a good transition for when Ashley graduates in May plus it would give her time to socialize with other kids. I found an awesome lady who is only a few block from our house, on my way to work and it super nice! KR is going to start there tomorrow so more updates to come!

SiX

I am looking forward to a quite week! We don't have too much planned for this week so I foresee some quality family time in the future. KR does start swimming lesson on Saturday and will have them every Saturday until May and we have a Jaycees training on Sunday but other than family time here we come!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

My First Blog Award!

I got my first blog award! I am so excited I can't even tell you! I started this blog last July thinking no one would read and now I won an award! I received this "Stylish Blogger Award" on Monday (yes, I know it is Friday and I am just getting around to blogging about it!) from Emily over at The Johnson Five!  I recently started following Emily though a couple of the Blog Link-ups that I have participated in lately and she is such a sweet, wonderful woman and mom. I love reading her blog and I'm so glad I found it though the link ups. Thanks Emily!

Along with this award comes some responsibilities......

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 recently discovered bloggers.

4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!

Here are the 7 things about me:
1)  I'm addicted to Diet Coke.
2)  I love my DVR! Seriously, I record more shows then I even want to admit each week.
3)  I love country music although I will listen to just about anything.
4)  I hated the color pink until I found out I was pregnant with a little girl now it is my second favorite color.
5)   I have watched every season of the Biggest Loser and Big Brother
6)  I am hopelessly addicted to celebrity gossip!
7)   I still have hope the Royals with win a World Series in my lifetime.


Now, time for me to award 15 recently discovered bloggers!

1)  Jessica @ Stilettos & a fishing pole
2)  Aly @ analyze this
3) Adrienne @ AOG Daily
4)  Stephanie @ Houghton Happenings
5)  Jessica @ IVF, Here We Come
6)  Katie @ Katie's Journey
7)  Kelly @ keeping up with kelly & co
8)  Amy @ Life Follows Faith
9)  Ty @ Rants. Raves. Ridiculous
10)   R @ Romancing Rachel
11)   Al @ Traffic Jelly
12)   Jordan @ Beyond Blessed
13)   Kit @ A Step into My Life
14)   Becca @ Made with Love
15)  Jess @ Dude and Sweeties

I'll contact the award winners later tonight, Congrats Ladies and Thanks Again Emily!

11 in 2011 Day 11

What are you Looking Forward to in 2011

I can't believe it is already the 11th day of the blog challenge! I love these blog challenges because it give me something to write about each day plus I have met some awesome women though the two I have done so far. Hopefully I will find another one soon other wise you all are going to be stuck reading about my life!

Here is just a snap shot of the things I'm looking forward to in 2011:

My 101 in 1001 list
I want to have my 101 list written by February 5th so that I will complete it on my 31st birthday! Once I am done writing I'm looking forward to checking things off the list over the next 2.75 years!

KR's 1st Birthday

I can't believe I just wrote those words! She is growing like a weed but it seems like just yesterday she was born, there is no way it is almost her 1st birthday! 


Waterloo Jaycees
There are great things that are going to happen this year with the Waterloo Jaycees and I can't wait to be part of it. 


4 Years of marriage 
On July 7th Jason and I will be married for four year! Holy crap! It has defiantly been a roller coaster ride but it has been a ton of fun. I can't wait to see what else life has for us! 

A big thanks to Kit and MJ for hosting the 11 in 2011 blog challenge! It has been a lot of fun and great topics! 

11 in 2011 Day 10

Favorite Girls Night Out Events

There is nothing better than a Girls Night Out! When I was in college I lived in my sorority house so it was Girls Night Out all the time. That was one of my favorite parts of being in a sorority, I loved having people around all the time! If you had to make a quick Wal-Mart trip, needed a beer, or wanted someone to watch TV with it didn't matter, there was always someone there! When I went to graduate school my program was set up as a cohort so I kind of had built in friends as soon as I got there. We enjoyed watching Grey's on Thursday after class, Nathan's before the fire, Cadillac for dancing, and Fitters pizza! When Jason and I moved to Iowa it took me a while to find a core group of women to hang out with, and that was a huge void in my life. The older I get the more I enjoy time to myself, but everyone needs girl friends they can turn to for advice or a beer. I have found some amazing women here now and I can't image my life without them!  Anyway, I know that was kind of rambling but here are a few of my favorite things to do on a Girls Night Out:

 Margaritas! 

Good mexican food, good drinks and good food, what more do you need in life?!?

Pedicures!

Who doesn't love to be pampered? 

Shopping!

Retail therapy can cure just about anything!

Wine tour.

When I was in grad school there were two winery's less than 10 minutes away, 

well any given Friday afternoon you could find a few of out there having

good wine and good conversation!

Merry Christmas from the Stinson's

I know this is crazy late but I didn't have electronic copies of our cards so I took pictures of the two different cards we sent out.

What a weekend!

My goodness it is already Sunday night! The last three days have flown by and I can't believe the spring semester starts tomorrow!I fell behind on the 11 in 2011 blog challenge but never fear, three post tonight and I am all caught up! I don't really have a good excuse why I feel behind other than a lazy weekend!

Friday we had our final orientation before schools starts so the day flew by and before I knew it my watch beeped 5:00pm! You have to love days like that but at the same time I got nothing done so I feel like I am going to start the semester behind! After I got home from work Jason informed me we were going on a date night with KR. We used some of the gift cards we got for Christmas to have dinner at Applebee's then made a quick trip to Menards to get the parts to fix our broken toilet then HyVee to pick up some essentials for the week. By the time we did all that and got home it was 9pm, an hour past KR's bedtime! We quickly did bath, bottle and bed then Jason and I sat down to put our feet up for a few minutes.

Nothing too exciting happens Saturday morning. The normal wake up call at 8am from the lovely KR, followed by breakfast and playtime. Jason worked on fixing the upstairs toilet which resulted in another trip to Menards. The afternoon was spend lounging and family time playtime with all of KR's new toys. Saturday night Jason and I had our Annual Jaycees Holiday Party. This year it was held at a local BBQ place and boy was the food yummy! Jason and I discovered this restaurant right after they opened about a year and a half ago. We are from Kansas, home of the best BBQ so it is hard for us to eat at non Kansas BBQ places but this place is yummy!  We had a blast and of course I had my camera but forgot to take any pictures!  Hopefully someone will post some on Facebook so I can share my beauty of a tacky sweater with you all!

Today was filled with a lot of lounging! KR was up bright and early at 7:45am which was followed by breakfast then mid-morning we had family nap time for about an hour! Thank goodness, we all needed the extra sleep! The afternoon was filled with watching sports; Chiefs, Jayhawks, Panthers, Shockers, Nevada and now it is time for bed!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

11 in 2011 Day 9

Favorite Things to Do on a Cold Winter Day

Since we live in Iowa and it is COLD here from late October to early April I get lots of Cold Winter Days! My favorite things to do include:

 Snuggle with my puppy!

Read!

I would love to take some time each night to read but the reality is I just don't make the time, however during the winter it is much easier to sit and read all day when you can't be outside.

DVR

I record something like 12 shows a week! 

Yes, very obsessive but I work so many nights that I'm not home to watch

shows when they are on so I have to DVR them and watch them when I can...

I also conster this good time management since it only takes 42 minutes to 

watch a DVRed show versus watching with the commercials!

11 in 2011 Day 8

Favorite Healthy Snacks

Here are my top three choices of Favorite Healthy Snacks:

 1) Apples and Peanut butter 

2) 100 calorie fudge bars

(Ok, I don't really know how "healthy" they are but they are low calorie and yummy!)

3) 94% Fat Free Smart Pop Kettle Korn
In the small single serving bags...YUM! 

11 in 2011 Day 7

Favorite Memory of 2010

Oh wow! How do I choose just one Favorite Memory of 2010! I will go ahead with the obvious choice of KR joining our family! Boy has our lives changed since she was born but we are blessed beyond belief with such a wonderful baby girl! I can't believe in a week and a half she will be eight months old!

Hours after she was born!

 7 months old!

11 in 2011 Day 6

Best Organization Tricks

Label! Label! Label! 
The best way to keep everything organized is to label! It doesn't matter if it is a shoe box with old pictures or a freezer bag with leftovers grab a sharpie or pen and paper and label! Also, when it comes to labeling food I also put the date on the container! If you put the date on the container then you don't have to try to think back to when you opened that box of pasta or had meatloaf for dinner. 

Colored Hangers
I use two different colors of hangers in my closet. Once I have worn something then it goes on one color while everything else is on a separate color. At the end of the season/year I look at what I have worn and what I have not worn and make my Goodwill pile. I sometimes fudge if there are cloths that I REALLY, REALLY like but maybe the shirt is a small not a medium (I'll be able to wear it again someday!) so I will hang onto it for one more season. This has really helped me to see I have a TON of cloths that I do not wear!

Colored Tubs/Clear Tubs with colored lids
I try to by the Rubbermaid tubs during the season they are out so for example an orange one at Halloween and red at Christmas. This makes for easy storage plus easy to sort thought what you need!



I can't wait to read all of your best organization tricks so hopefully I will be able to incorporate some into our lives!

11 in 2011 Day 5

My goodness how is it already 9pm! I feel like I just got out of bed a few hours ago! The work day flew by today and this evening has been no different! I had more than enough work to keep me busy all day plus some at work with getting my students grades for last semester prepared then tonight Jason has his dad's group so it is just KR and I! I love Wednesday's for that reason but it also means I get nothing done once I get home from work! Oh well, I can never get the time back I spend with KR!


Now onto Day 5 of the 11 in 2011 Blog Challenge.

Places You Hope to go this Year


Kansas
Well of course we will go to the good ol' KS! As of now we don't have any plans to go back until Memorial day when we will be celebrating KR's first birthday! I can't believe that May is only four short months away! Then we will make a few other trips throughout the summer and of course several weekends in the fall for K-State football and again for Christmas.

Complete parts of my 101 list
There are several things I have listed on my 101 list that involve travel. Here are just a few I hope to complete in 2011:
-Spontaneous day trip
-Date nights
-K-State games
-MLB stadiums

Maybe Vegas for Jason's birthday
Jason's work requires him to travel 4-5 times a year, the good thing about this is every other year for the last few years he has to travel to Las Vegas and even better than that he is usually in Vegas for his birthday! Are you kidding me?!? He got to spend his 30th, 32nd and hopefully this year his 35th all in Vegas. I have been lucky enough to travel with him each of his trips to Vegas and we have always done something exciting for his special day. Hopefully it will workout again this year for me to travel with him!



Huntington Beach
Jason's brother will be getting married on September 10th (9-10-11) in Huntington Beach, CA so we will be traveling there for the wedding. His sister lives in LA so we are hoping to be able to go out a few days early and spend some time with her before the wedding.


Mexico!!!
2011 is our year to spend Christmas with Jason's mom which is great because she is always up for traveling to a warm destination for the holidays...this year we are hoping to go to Mexico! It just to happens that K-State is playing in a basketball tournament in Cancun right before Christmas so we are hoping that we will be able to take in some basketball and warm weather!

11 in 2011 Day 4

 Best Leftover Recipe

I am terrible with leftovers and even more terrible with cooking! My husband is the cook in our family, I love to bake and he loves to cook so it works out nicely!  With that being said I don't have any good leftover recopies so I will be anxious to read all the great ones everyone else is going to post!

11 in 2011 Day 3

Favorite Work-Out Tips

I have not used this yet but I plan to when I run my half marathon. So here is my favorite work-out tip stolen from a friend. 


Before my friend ran her first half marathon she sent the following email to her close friends:


"If you don't know, I have taken to running in the past year, and in two weeks I am running my first 1/2 Marathon in Rochester, MN! I am a little nervous, but pumped! I feel trained and ready to go, minus one thing. I don't have a playlist for my Ipod for the run!

So I am asking for your help! When I think about those people I want to take on my 13.2 mile journey, you were the people that came to mind. You have impacted me whether it be personally, professionally, or have been with me on this crazy journey the past couple of years! What I am looking for are songs...it can be your favorite song, something that you think will remind me of you, it can be completely random...it is up to you! I just thought what a better way to experience this mid-life goal with the people have inspired me along my way!"

I love this idea and can't wait to do the same thing before I run my half marathon!

11 in 2011 Day 2

Favorite Holiday Memory

Oh wow! How do you pick just one favorite holiday memory?!? Ok, I'm going to cheat just a little and tell you about my two most favorite holiday memories but they are the same theme so that has to count for something right?!?


Part one of my favorite holiday memory was Christmas 2007. We had decided to celebrate Christmas with my mom's parents on December 30th. It was a day that everyone (at the time 22 people) could all make it to grandma and grandpa's house at the same time...yes this a major feat when you have people who live in two different states and range in age from 3 to 75! Why this is one of my favorite holiday memories is because it was the last Christmas my grandpa was with us. None of us had any idea this would be his last Christmas, we knew his health was getting bad but we all thought he had a few more years in him. We had a wonderful day of celebrating together, everyone was happy to be together and there was just a calmness that was in the house that day when we look back on our celebration. My grandpa ended up passing away February 23, 2008 but we all hold December 30, 2007 close to our hearts.

 December 30, 2007
Cook Family Christmas

Part two of my favorite holiday memory is the same story as above but with my husband's grandpa. For Christmas 2009 the Stinson family was having a hard time finding a date when a majority of the family could gather to celebrate Christmas but it seemed like out of thin air it worked out that New Years Day would be the best day when everyone except for 3 of the grand kids (at the time 49 people)  could be there so we went with the date! We all gathered at Bonnie and Dales house and had a wonderful day. Again, we knew Dale's health was fading but we had no idea it would be the last time we would celebrate Christmas with him.  Dale was diabetic and had to watch what he ate very closely however, on this New Years Day each one of us saw him sneak a cookie or two but no one said anything to him. I was 22 weeks pregnant at this point so I got very tired very quickly so I was kind of being pushy with Jason about leaving so I could go take a nap, however the best thing happened before we left. Dale was sitting in the dinning room telling stories about his youth and their house, Jason and I ended up sitting there for over an hour listening to the stories. I am so glad that we didn't end up leaving because we would never have another chance at that moment because Dale passed away on January 7, 2010.

January 11, 2010
Grandma Bonnie with 15 of her 16 grand kids

Whenever I hear Laughed Until We Cried by Jason Aldean it make me think of both of these moments, especally these lines:

This past year my family
Was sittin cross-legged 'round the Christmas tree
Listenin to granddad, we all knew it would probably be his last
He was crackin jokes and we were takin turns
Tellin stories bout fishing or lessons learned
Out on the porch with him we all felt like kids again

Make me cry every time!

11 in 2011 Day 1

New Year Resolutions

I don't think I have ever made a "New Years Resolution" par say but each year around the holiday season I start thinking about about things I would like to do better or ways to make me a better person. Here is my list for this year:

*Be a better wife, mother, daughter, and friend

Not that I am necessarily doing a bad job now but I know I could be doing better
 

*Grow my faith
We have found a church that we love and now I would like us to

become more involved in the church fellowship

*Learn to say NO

I have a really hard time with this so I am going to work on it if it kills me!

*Be healther

In food, life and exercise

*Wish everyone of my friends Happy Birthday on Facebook

Ok, yes I know this sounds silly but this is going to be my way of narrowing down my friends on Facebook. Seriously, I almost 900 "friends" on Facebook, I think it is high time to cut some strings! If I feel like I can't wish you a Happy Birthday because I don't know you well enough or we haven't spoken to each other in the last year...your getting the ax!

*Enjoy life

I have a very hard time relaxing enough to enjoy life sometimes. I'm always worried about he details and making sure everything is just right, well if I would give that up sometimes then I think I would be a happier, healthier and more fun person to be around!