ready for the weekend.

To wrap up this week:

Evan slammed the toilet seat down on his P again...and being the awesome Mom I am I couldn't help but laugh as I consoled him. He's done it TWICE now!

Liam has mastered the one handed sippy cup drinking technique.

Max had ANOTHER snow day. He also got 105% on his first ever spelling test! WOOT!
I cooked a couple of really fun and quite tasty meals this week.
One was Chicken Pozole which is an awesome and healthy meal.
Thanks to my soon to be sister-in-law for hooking me up with Simply Recipes.
I LOVE to cook, and hope I can develop my cooking skills even more this year.

Justin is LOVING his new{ish} position, and so, we will be in sexy Lexvegas a bit longer.
{which we both are happy about...have I mentioned our ROCKIN' church body ?! }

And....last but not least. I'm sitting at a stoplight this morning{belting out some My Morning Jacket...I've given up on caring if people think I'm weird} , after a quick run to the ole' Tar-jay and I hear a honk next to me.
The woman in the passanger seat signals for me to roll down my window.
"Do you know where the nearest Starbucks is?" asks the driver.
"Oh sure," I'm tempted to reply I know where EVERY Starbucks within a hundred mile radius is, so if they will need another soon I'm their gal. "it's blah, blah...."
"Thank you!!!"
And I roll up my window, and their signal to turn left turns green.
As soon as they turn off, I realize that the two SURE looked like Usher and his Mom.
AND there was an adult in the backseat who COULD BE a bodyguard.
You DO NOT EVEN KNOW how tempted I was to go to that Starbucks and see if it really was him.
Seriously unless it was Bradley Cooper{i love the guy} I would NOT EVEN recognize a celebrity if I had a ten minute conversation with him/her.
So if anyone out there knows if USHER was passing through Lexvegas this weekend, {or if you are reading this USHER...e-mail me} ha! Of course then again, maybe I don't want to know. Because I'll be disappointed if I'm wrong, and if I was right, I'd be disappointed I didn't get a picture.

Happy WEEKEND everybody!

check it.

My cousin Sara and I have started a 5 day a week photo blog{inspired by NIE}, just for fun. We live so far apart, that we figured this would be a fun way to keep in touch, and for our family all over the country toc check out. {click picture to get to blog}

training for toiletry

If you can recall, Evan enjoyed playing in the toilet now and again.

But, Liam?
Liam is in LOVE with the toilet.
Liam plays in the toilet as if he were training for the Olympics.

He is QUICK too. If the bathroom door is open at all, he is getting in there, guaranteed.

Here is the short list of things I've fished out:
-a WHOLE roll of toilet paper
-3 toothbrushes {that were immediately disposed of}
- a shirt
- a pack of unopened wipes
- toy cars
-a bath towel {yes, he stuffed the ENTIRE towel in}

Maybe there is something the rest of us are missing out on, but in the meantime, I make sure I clean the clean the toilets slightly better than before knowing the L-man will most likely soon be bobbing for apples it it.

This kid is whack.

snowy river

snowy river 2.18.2010, originally uploaded by olives on a monday.

really?

For this season of lent, I am doing the unthinkable.

Giving up STARBUCKS.

It started of as a passing thought when I commented on Annika's facebook post.

Later I received a message from Annika talking further on the subject.

I knew I had to do it.

Like Annika, Starbucks had become a "my time" thing.

It was a stress reliever, my time of day to just relax and let it all go while sipping my latte.

Years ago, when I worked at Starbucks, at a time when it was all you could drink, it was an innocent addiction. That was when the addiction was free.

Sure it was still innocent enough when I would go to Starbucks once a week, but it has gotten to a point that it is an automatic stop whenever we leave the house.

Furthermore, and I would like to quote Annika here, and I hope she doesn't mind that;
"I think, also, that we need to think of it as 'Is God more important to me than my runs to Starbucks? Could I let this go if God asked me to?' And as much as I want to say...'But it's just coffee!' I find that my initial response was, 'Oooh, it would be REALLY hard for me to give that up.' Even for JESUS, for crying out loud?"

hhhhhmmmmmmmm...yeah. Her message to me was like she was reading my mind. So I knew it had to be done. As much as I didn't want it to be, and as much feet stomping and groaning that accompanied my decision I know that it is the right one. My bank account {and husband} are already thanking me.

So Tuesday, as I spent the remainder of the gift card Megan had so generously sent me, {and yes I thought of you, thank you!} I unknowingly sipped my last Starbucks non-fat latte until April.
If I would have known it was my last, I probably would have gone back two more times that day.
For now though, I'm happily making good coffee at home, I have a great little frother that does a great job, and plenty of non-fat milk.
I wanted to make changes for the better in 2010. To strive to be MORE Christ like.
And while this may seem small, for me, it is a BIG start.

l-a-z-y

Justin shoveled the top half. I shoveled the bottom and the sidewalk.

As for the middle?

What's the point? :)

blizzard. 2010

We have NOT had a mild winter here in any way, shape, or form. This is the SOUTH!
However,

today is no exception.
We woke up to this:

We are SNOWED in, and I don't mind one bit.
On NPR this morning they said;" Just stay home."
And that, is what we plan to do.
I'm going to make a big breakfast, start a fire and enjoy the day together.

In fact, Justin, Max, and Evan are still in bed. And it's 10am.

The L-man and I don't mind one bit.

mpls.

Have I ever mentioned I LOVE big cities?
Well, I do.
Something happens to me when I'm in a big city. It's hard for me to be upset about anything.
I think public transportation is awesome, and I love seeing people hustle and bustle about.
Not that people aren't in a rush in my small city, it's just a different.

Last Friday I flew up to Minneapolis.
Two of my brothers live there, and my parents drove up from Wisconsin. I also got to go to a tea party {an event that will NOT soon be forgotten..it was hillarious, I wish I took more pictures} to celebrate my soon to be sister-in-law's {who is really awesome I might add} marriage to my brother, Alec.

They make a great couple. :)
It was a whirlwind of a weekend, flew in on Friday and filled every waking moment with something until I left again early Sunday.
It was a good weekend.
I felt a bit like a tourist snapping photos with my little point and shoot, but what can I say?

Big cities do that to you.

can I be good at SOMETHING?!!

image:bakerella.com

Adorable right?

Looking amazingly scrumptious?

I'm telling you Bakerella is one talented lady.

Like Martha Stewart talented.

Sometimes I think I'm Martha.

But, I'm nowhere close.

{along with the fact that I have no staff}

Anyway. I decided to try and take a crack at the cake pops Bakerella has so beautifully featured.

Looked easy enough.

Here is how mine turned out...

sigh.
{at least they tasted good...I think}

I think first of all I made my cake pops a little too large.

My chocolate adding technique needs so SERIOUS help.

I was pretty disappointed in how LAME mine turned out.

It was a process just to get them to stick on the stick!!!

They pretty much looked like the 47 Christmas ornaments Justin has from his younger years of a clay ball on the end of a popcicle stick.

L-A-M-E and ugly. {no offense to your lovely ornaments Justin}

So I was bummed...and who knows if I will give these a go again.

I want YOU to though, and I want to see how AWESOME and incredible yours turn out...because you can't really do any worse than my 1st grade level ones.

Happy {almost} weekend!

I'm out for the weekend in MINNEAPOLIS while Justin stays home with the boys.WOOT!

Pray for his sanity.

{HEY, I'm giving in to his begging for a flatscreen...so it's a good deal for him}

only evan.

Last night, around 4a.m. I hear a thud and a short cry. I really didn't think anything about the thud and thought the cry was Liam.

About fifteen minutes later Evan comes to our room quietly crying. I hear Justin ask him; "What Happened?!"

I look over and he has blood all over his face, what did happen?!

We take him into our bathroom, he has blood all over his face and arms, I couldn't even tell WHERE he was bleeding from!

I got a warm washcloth and wiped his face off {while he was still half asleep!} and we discovered he had punctured just below his bottom lip with a tooth when he fell.

It was gross...but he was pretty much sleeping though it all. When Evan is asleep, he is ASLEEP.

We cleaned him up and put some liquid bandage on it to seal it, luckily the hole was fairly small, but sheesh,

ONLY Evan.