Labor Day Weekend

Can I stretch out Labor Day weekend forever?
While I would love to say that we had massive plans and did all sorts of ridiculously fun things - the reality was we did very minimal. We stayed at home, I worked Sunday, and we had a GREAT weekend.








We live in a SUPER touristy area and Labor Day for us marks the end of the CRAZY busy tourist season. I rejoice because it means I can go to the grocery store, Target, out to eat whenever we want {during the busy season we avoid going Friday-Sunday}. While I rejoice at the tourists because we get all sorts of things in town that we otherwise wouldn't be able to support without the tourists. But it is nice to see them go. We can paddle on the lake without having to worry about lots and lots of boat traffic.








Lucy has a new fascination with walking Dakota. SHE LOVES to hold Dakota's leash and walk her, thankfully Dakota is THE MOST PATIENT dog ever and for the most part walks nice and slow next to Lucy. I am not overly certain Dakota really even needs to be on a leash but she is none the less. Lucy now walks about a quarter mile or so before she is EXHAUSTED and then we put her on our backs in a carrier for the rest of the walk.

We stayed at home. We deep cleaned the house. We went on long walks and took hikes at the State Park. We went swimming in the lake. We took long bike rides (Marc went 43 miles, I only went 17 with a friend, but I was hauling a trailer w/ two kids in tow). We ate Zorbaz, as we do every Labor day for dinner. We took naps. We read books. We played with Little People. I crocheted. We went for runs. We hung out. We savored the day. We didn't have to work {for the most part}.

Summer last forever please.
Or perhaps these days last forever.

How was your weekend?

Lucy's First Year Photobook

This past year I have been rather intentional about keeping up on Lucy's first year photobook, she also got a photobook for her baptism. I knew that there was ZERO chance that I would actually be able to keep up with a "real" scrapbook so I have opted to go with Shutterfly {which I adore}, and if I didn't do it as I went there was NO chance it would happen later. Just about every Sunday night I would update her book making this less of a task and it only took a few minutes each night. I FINALLY just got around to proof reading it and all that good stuff AND shutterfly had a phenomenal sale on books making now the time to order.

Click here to view this photo book larger

I have another book already started for her second year. I can't believe my baby is already one and not a baby any more. Hello Toddler Years! {Lord, have mercy}

In addition to this photo book, I also make one for our family each year. This year I have also begun backing up our videos to youtube and burning them to a dvd. I am afraid that something will happen to our phones and camcorder (yes, we actually still have one and use it) - so I like to back that stuff up.

How do you create scrapbooks?
How do you preserve your memories?
Do you make photo books? What program/website do you like to use?

Back to my little corner of the world.

My little family from the lake last week

I am coming back to this sweet little corner of the world.
Summer has been NUTS to say the least. It has been a bunch of beautiful chaos however, I want to savor these last few weeks before everything begins again.

Confession: I missed this space - I missed blogging - I missed my place to let my voice be heard. So I am coming back here to this place.

I am sure I have lost all of my followers however, I will be back.

Some exciting things that will make blogging a little bit easier: WE ARE GETTING HIGH SPEED INTERNET - they are laying the fiberoptic cables now and within the next month we should have internet so I don't have to go to a coffee shop to blog any more.





How was your summer?

Birthdays

Marc and I have birthdays two days apart on the calendar - April 3 & 5. Further to be complicated by the fact that this year those dates fell on Good Friday and Easter. Which I suppose if you aren't working for a church, or your wife isn't working for a church it is probably pretty fun dates to have your birthday on. These days/weeks are pretty chaotic. However, for us not so much. We did manage to squeeze in a little bit of celebrating in the midst of the madness - here's to next year when our birthdays aren't during holy week.

Friday after worship we did go out for Marc's birthday, we went to a great wood fire pizza place here in town and then over to Cold Stone for ice cream. Marc's mom and my mom were both in town already and were able to join us for the fun. Marc picked both places to celebrate. Cold Stone even gave him free ice cream, technically I think you are suppose to print off a coupon online or something to get free ice cream but this woman was just nice and gave it to him.

My birthday I was at church from about 5:40 am till about 1:00pm and I was EXHAUSTED afterwards. Marc and my dad had picked up a Dairy Queen peanut butter cup blizzard cake for my birthday. After we had Easter dinner we had blizzard cake for dessert. YUM.

Marc did squeeze away Sunday night to go and see Fast and the Furious 7 with a couple friends - he was anxiously awaiting the movie but with the chaos of the weekend he wasn't able to escape until Sunday night.

We had fun. We celebrated a little bit and rejoiced that we survived Holy Week. Here's to another trip around the sun.




What is your favorite kind of birthday cake?

{Cupcakes: Disney's Peanut Butter Cupcake}

I have caught the itch for the trend of cupcakes.
I love how each individual cake looks nice as opposed to when you cut a cake it looks awesome as a whole but the individual pieces do not always look so stellar when they are being served.

This winter I have really taken seriously my love of cupcakes and have started to learn how to frost/decorate my own as well as bake my own from scratch. {I know they probably don't taste all that much different and maybe not even better, but I love knowing I created something from square one} Pinterest has a TON of fun ideas, the problem is some of them are just pictures while other include the entire recipe. I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to cupcakes. I {and my mom} are always pinning different cupcakes, some people are ridiculously creative.

A couple weeks ago Lucy, Marc, Dakota, and I met up with Cubby {my brother}, Al {Cubby's girlfriend}, and my parents in Minneapolis to celebrate my Mom's 60th birthday. I offered to bring the cupcakes {what's a birthday party w/out cake?!}.

I found THIS pin on Pinterest, which lacks any directions just has a picture.
They claim to be Disney's Peanut Butter Cupcake. {I would LOVE to learn a ton of Disney parks recipes}

I made a chocolate cake from scratch
Put mini peanut butter chips inside the cake
Baked them
Made a homemade buttercream frosting
Sprinkled with a few mini peanut butter chips
Drizzled melted peanut butter chips {I add a tiny bit of oil to my melted chips}
Drizzled melted chocolate chips  {I once again add a tiny bit of oil to my melted chips}
Added a mini Reece's Peanut Butter cup to each cupcake

In retrospect: the pin put the peanut butter cup on then added the two drizzles


We brought a dozen to Minneapolis and a dozen to a St. Patty's day party
We had zero left at the end of the weekend, so I am calling it a success

Do you like to bake?
What do you like to bake?

January Photodump

we both love babywearing

Someone found her refelction

Best friends chew toys together

#GoPackGo

The newest Mouseketeer 

We Love Walt Disney World

Someone fell in love with a grey scale Minnie Mouse

Homemade Peanut Butter
SOOOOOOOOOOO YUMMMMMY

How was your January? 

What was your highlight?

Misc adventures

Ahh life has been way busier than I care to admit. It has been good but nuts none the less. Work has been/is crazy for both Marc and I adding to the chaos, but in the midst of it we have managed to have some fun!

Trip to Ely, MN for Mukluks

January 1 we got our 500th egg

My loves

Thanks to pintrest, I found a stuffed animal
storage solution that I liked

These two and their naps are precious

and let's not forget the beloved puppy

The tuft of hair that sticks up in the back kills me
LOVE IT!

Someone is hot stuff and can now grab her toys

During the Packers vs. Cowboys game
#GoPackGo
Bring on Seattle

How has life been?
What have you been up to?

Post Christmas fun

The day after Christmas we stayed down in Minneapolis for the day to enjoy some time with my brother and his girlfriend. We spent the day at the Mall of America and Lucy had a BLAST. She seriously hardly napped at all and was a CHAMPION - she was ridiculously happy to be hanging out with everyone. She alternated between being held and riding around in her carseat (she got hot being carried and eventually we stripped her down to only her onesie). We went and walked through the Aquarium and Lucy was AMAZED to look at all the fish and the different colors, Uncle Cubby was thrilled to carry her around and explain her to all about the fish (Uncle Cubby is working on becoming a Vet). We also ate lunch at a delicious Italian place in the mall.  We had a great time walking around and talking and hanging out.

Uncle Cubby & Lucy
Jellyfish

Uncle Cubby & Lucy 

Lucy had the magic smile to convince Grandma that
she needed this stuffed baby golden retriever (which is super cute)

Eighteen Months as a MRS

I seriously can hardly believe that we have been married for 18 months and only 18 months.
It has been great.


We have learned more about ourselves and each other since the arrival of Lucy.


The Wonderful Things:

• WE HAVE A DAUGHTER
• adjusting to life as parents has been interesting for sure - there is a ridiculously sharp learning curve (which we knew but the reality is always harder than what people warn you about)
• Lucy is ridiculously amazing
• Marc is a phenomenal father
• We are back to working on our basement now that winter has arrived yet again
• we intended on getting it done before Lucy was born, however, with her early arrival we got setback

The Things No One Ever Tells You About:

• Balancing three schedules is even harder than balancing two - while Lucy really doesn't have that much of a schedule yet (or things she has to be at other than doctors appointments and day care) it still is a bit of a challenge to figure it all out
• this requires more communication than we ever thought
• it's hard figuring out whose picking up Lucy and dropping her off
• It is sometimes hard to remember at random places (dentist, eye doctor, places that you don't go often) which name you are listed as
• I called to check if my contacts were in at the eye doctor and they kept telling me they didn't have me listed or that I didn't have any contacts ordered
• Mind you I had an appointment two weeks earlier so I KNEW they had me in the system

The Miscellaneous Things:

• We are in full vacation planning mode
• Hopefully Arizona in April, Okoboji in August, and Walt Disney World in November (for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon)
• We bought a treadmill
• makes life in the winter months WAAAYYYYY easier than trying to find time to get to the YMCA to run
• I still hate treadmills but I refuse to run on ice
• triathlons still scare the crap out of me but I am jazzed to be running one this summer
• I STILL haven't gotten my name changed at the library
• WHY OH WHY is the library the worst of all places to get my name changed, it seriously isn't that complicated - but apparently it is
• Hopefully the ridiculousness will pass and they will just change my name

Thanksgiving Plans

One of the challenges of where Marc & I live (with really no great solution of where to move to lessen this problem) is that Marc and I live in the middle of our families (which is great), except that it makes the drive six hours to the east or six hours to the west to get to our families. So we started the tradition that we go to Wisconsin and South Dakota for Thanksgiving every other year. This year is our Wisconsin year.

The new challenge of course is traveling with Lucy.
In years past Marc and I have each taken our sleeping bags and a backpack with everything we need. This year, however, we have a lot more pack.
PLUS we have one JUMBO box of cutout cookies and one printer box of cutout cookies.
        Took Marc 11 HOURS to bake these things - now to not break them.

Dakota is spending the holiday at one of the pet boarding places here in town.

I have to help with the Thanksgiving Eve service here in town at 7:00pm tonight, soooooo we aren't leaving tonight since it wouldn't be until after 8:00pm. We are planning on leaving tonight to head down to the Twin Cities to stay with my brother - we probably won't arrive till 10:30ish or so but it will be massively helpful in the morning - I would MUCH rather drive late night than have to get up and leave by 4:00 or 4:30 tomorrow morning. Lucy is a wildcard. She HATES riding in her carseat and six hours is a long ways for her to ride. We figure we will have to stop about every two hours to feed Lucy and to let her stretch - stopping at my brothers will definitely help some. I wish we weren't going so late but with work I don't really have many other options.

I am going to have to use disposable diapers on Lucy which I am not thrilled about - they just don't hold everything in as well as her cloth diapers. However, we don't own enough diapers to make it through the trip and won't have any access to washers and dryers.

We will be returning home on Saturday because I have to work Sunday morning - which while I am a little sad the trip will be ridiculously fast I am glad that we shouldn't be in the madness of fighting a ton of people who are returning from other places on Sunday. Plus this should give me Sunday to get caught up on everything: laundry, clean out the car, and get prepped for the next week without having to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Random fact that you don't care about:
I have discovered that (when possible) it is easiest to pack for Lucy, Marc, and I all in one Rubbermaid tote rather than having three separate bags. It makes it easier for us to only have to carry one bucket that fits everything we need: diapers, bottles, and clothes for the three of us. Since we know we will be sleeping on the floor we also are taking our sleeping bags and airbed as well as a pack n' play for Lucy.


What are your Thanksgiving plans?
Are you traveling for the holiday?
How do you feel about traveling during the holidays?

Weekend Recap

Ahhh I can't believe how quickly I am already forced to write this - I would like to request extra days for the weekend (wait wouldn't we all?!) - as well as extra days that I plan absolutely nothing. I want days that we aren't allowed to schedule anything. Is that possible?

Friday night we had a dinner with a group of friends from church - can't go wrong with friends, taco bar, and ice cream bar :) - let me not forget to mention that Lucy was loved on the entire time and she soaked up all the love. Which go figure I didn't manage to get a single picture of - apparently I actually was into whatever we were going on an didn't even bother to take out my phone to grab a picture.



Saturday was wonderful: laundry, snuggling on the couch, a good run for me, a walk with Dakota (it is pretty cold and a bit slippery here, so no running outside for me), some packing for middle school gathering, and Marc began the great cookie baking process for the day after Thanksgiving frosting party at his Grandparents house.
Saturday night I spent out at a local resort with 597 of my favorite middle schoolers (28 from my own church) and we had a marvelous little retreat. Lucy spent her first night alone with dad. Word on the street was there was much snuggling at home and Marc realized he can't bake cookies and entertain Lucy - so they snuggled the night away. Lucy slept in our room in her rock and play because Marc was a little worried about not hearing Lucy when she woke up in the middle of the night - but they both did fine and I heard Dakota got promoted to sleeping on my spot on our bed. It is rough to be the beloved golden retriever at our house. 

Sunday Lucy came out to the Middle School Gathering so that Marc could continue baking cookies as soon as he got home from church. Lucy was in heaven - EVERYONE wanted to hold her and snuggle her. The kids were fascinated by her and she had a great time. Thankfully I brought our Beco babycarrier along so that she could curl up and get in a good nap without being ridiculously over stimulated. So in the midst of LOUD worship she slept peacefully (thankful for the baby carrier and for a baby who can and will sleep just about anywhere without even blinking an eye). Welcome to the world of two working parents Lucy, you get to come on all sorts of retreats, lock-ins, meetings, and who knows where else you will be toted around due to my crazy work. She loved it so that helps. She really is a great baby as long as she is being held.




After the kids all left, a few of my good friends, who also are local went swimming at the resort before we left. (The Packer vs Viking game on was on as well in the pool area - that game was a BIT too close for comfort - we drove home during half time so we could finish watching the game at home) It was great to have the pool to ourselves and to enjoy a little swimming after everyone left. Lucy LOVES the pool and loves kicking around and splashing. She thought it was great. The only major tears of the pool came when it was time to get out of the pool and go home. We get the same response when we take her out of the tub too, so I am not surprised.

When we got home, we finished watching the Packer game while helping Marc finish the cutout cookies - note the HUGE box full of cookies (I put Lucy in the picture for size comparison) as well as the printer paper box mostly full of cookies. UGGGG sooooo many cookies. Now to keep them from breaking while we drive to Wisconsin on Thursday morning. Here's hoping and praying we can get them padded well enough and they survive the journey. I wish it was our job to bring the frosting so that I wouldn't have to worry about this.

After the Packers game and cookies were done I had a wild hair idea to call up on of my high school kids to see if she'd watch Lucy so Marc and I could go see Mockingjay. Thankfully she said her homework was done and she'd love to. Tarin was officially Lucy's first babysitter.
Mockingjay was good, but I do love the book more than the movie. They took quite a few artistic liberties and some were not for the better. I had hoped since they broke Mockingjay into two parts they would be able to keep some of the details, but alas they weren't able to keep many that I had hoped for. Still worth watching though.


How was your weekend?
Have you seen Mocking jay?
How do you feel about cutout cookies?

Wine and Dine Half Marathon 2015

Lucy. How I love thee and always will.

She messed with my race schedule (as well as totally shifting my life in many ways). I wasn't able to run last summer like I had wanted to, I missed out on many of my favorite races and as motivation to get myself off the couch back into - I have convinced Marc to run a runDisney (his first and what will be his longest distance) race with me, we are going to be running the Wine and Dine this coming November, I have been talking about this race since I found out I was pregnant and realized that this sweet baby girl would wreck beautiful havoc on my race schedule (yes, there are far more important things in life, however, I do still love to run). Originally I was hoping to do the Tower of Terror 10 miler however, since they aren't running that race in 2015 it was off the list for this year, hard to run a race that isn't happening.

I am jazzed about the November race on several levels:

• I won't have to be putting on crap tons (yes, this is a technical distance) of miles on the treadmill in the winter months, I will get to train all summer/fall (where hopefully we will still be snow free come early November)
• Who doesn't love runDisney races?!
• My parents are coming along to hang out with Lucy while Marc and I run
• Who doesn't love Disney?!
• I am not as jazzed about the late evening time slot, however, I will adjust and be just fine - Suzi and I ran the Wine and Dine a few years ago and I MUCH prefer the before the crack of dawn time slot over the late evening time slot
• HOWEVER, I am WAYYY less nervous about running ridiculously late (okay not really ridiculously late for most people, just people like me who like to go to bed early) than I was before the Wine and Dine having done it before
• I love Disney. End Story.

365 DAYS from today I WILL be running the Wine and Dine Half Marathon..... let the countdown begin and the training continue!

May Photo Dump