How We Didn't Celebrate V-Day

Here's the story of Valentine's Day 2011...

Originally AMP and I weren't going to really celebrate Valentine's Day. When we saw a commercial for it a few weeks ago, we looked at each other and laughed, and said simlutaneously, "Let's just not do this holiday."

We'd just finished celebrating his birthday, and before that we celebrated Christmas at the Symphony, with my family, and even before that, Christmas with his family in Iowa. Not to mention my birthday was in November as well. Needless to say, we've done our fair share of celebrating in the last four months.

So here I am, thinking that Adam and I are just going to hang out like we usually do (which typically involves running, cooking, working on a project, or running errands--just being together), and I get this text:

So I know something might be up. And as I walk out to my car after work, I see these on my windshield:

{I have to say that Adam continually impresses me with his use of markers and construction paper. This is not his first creation for me.}

So now I'm thinking, "Well, shoot. This is totally against the 'Not Celebrating Valentine's' thing, but I'm liking it. A lot." So I head home, where Adam's waiting in his car, and I walk up to this:

At this point, I have zero words. Zero.

{Please note the use of construction paper again}

Next I learn that he's brought all these groceries, and he's going to teach me how to make his famous lasagna. He's made it for me once before, but I wasn't around to see him put it all together. I'd been wanting to learn, and it was a lot of fun. It takes a while to make and a while to bake, but we just jammed out to music, and it gave me an opportunity to get my words back. {Seriously, I couldn't complete a sentence for about an hour! I really just wasn't expecting this.}

Somewhere in between all the cooking, I see a bag on the mantle. I ask if I should open it now or later. "Now," he says. So I open it, and it's a 3 x 3 square box with a jewelry store name on it. Inside is a beautiful silver bracelet with an engraved heart! {It says, "My Shay Bear." Indeed.}

I wore it the rest of the evening and again today. Every time I look at it I just smile. :-)

We sat down to a delicious dinner of lasagna, garlic & Parmesan bread and salad. Yum.

AMP was quite proud--as he should be! I ended up with two dozen roses, dinner, a bracelet and a stuffed animal that the jewelry store threw in that says, "I'm Ape for you." It made us laugh. We're not really sure what that means...

I'm all for not celebrating more often! Suffice it to say that I felt incredibly special. Since I thought we weren't celebrating, I got Adam a humongous card (literally two feet tall) that was pretty funny. At least I bought a card! :-)

My alarm went off at 4:50 a.m this morning to get Downtown for a Kickoff Breakfast, and after my very exciting day, I was in bed before 10 last night! I'm still smiling from yesterday and probably will be for a good long while.

And that's the story of how we didn't celebrate Valentine's Day in 2011.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Week in Review

Hope you had a lovely weekend. Mine was quite relaxing, and I loved it. Just a few pics from this week. We celebrated Claire's birthday last Saturday night down in Deep Ellum at Twisted Root Burger Co. It was a lot of fun, and she was quite thrilled to have so many of her favorite people in one place. We sang and she blew out a candle that turned out to be a sparkler, so it re-lit three times. Kind of like a trick candle, I guess!

Her actual b-day was on Friday, and I woke up with her at 5:45 a.m. to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Did you know it's still dark then? Who knew. And she gets up that early every.single.morning. Makes me tired just thinking about it. We celebrated over breakfast with presents, and then I sent her off to school. I felt like such a mom! It was a fun morning.

Thursday after work, I stopped by the station to see Adam. It's always fun to step into his world and just hang out with him. He rode the engine that day, which means that the chance of him getting called out is slim, versus riding the ambulance. {Sometimes when I drop by, it's only about 5 minutes before he has to head out! But that's the name of the game.} We played ping-pong out where the Engine and Rescue hang out in the big garage. I got to show off my mad skillz, and it was quite fun. {Shockingly, I can actually play ping-pong. We had a table growing up, so I guess that's where I learned it...}

I took this iPhone pic of Adam in the Engine and edited it using my new App, ColorSplash. It's $.99 and you can make a photo black and white and then pick the parts that you want to have in color. I thought it was kinda fun.

Well, it looks like this week will be snow-free and warmer, which will be much enjoyed! Hope your weekend was good, too!

Inspiration Folder Peek 2

A few Saturdays ago, SMoo and I ventured out for lunch and some consignment store browsing.  I bought my purple couch there when Claire and I moved to our a-p-t a while ago, and I like to frequent it every so often.  We stayed in there for a good hour and a half, just looking around.  It was lovely.  I bought a few little things and so did SMoo.  Then, we headed over to HomeGoods {Like TJMaxx & Ross, except for, well...home goods.} Not to worry, I did not purchase all (or any) of these things, but this is just stuff that caught my eye.  Enjoy!

{one} I still have half a mind to call up the shop and ask them if this chair is still there.  By now, it would have gone down in price big time.  The fabric and nail-head details had me at hello.  Mom pointed out that it doesn't really go with the purple couch.  (But who says I can't recover that, right?) 

{two} Noritaki china.  They had several complete (or almost complete) sets of dishes.  This reminded me of my grandmother's that my mom has now.  It's simple and silver, and I like it.  

{three} This cute little bench has a lid that lifts up for storage.  I could see it in an entryway or a mud room.  

{four} At this point, I began to notice that painted furniture was all over the place.  This buffet table was really cool looking.  

{five} Now we're headed to HomeGoods.  I love that these pillows look like they stepped right out of a Pottery Barn catalogue.  I went back to check on them yesterday, and I have no bright ideas on how to use them yet.  But I'm still thinking.  

{six} More painted furniture.  I thought this was a sweet little side table.  It would totally go with the bedding I have right now.

{seven} Doesn't this buffet table look similar to the one above it?  Not quite as ornate, but I did like the painted doors and drawers. 

{eight}  See?  I told you painted furniture was in. 

{nine} This piece had crackled paint and looked very Pottery Barn to me, too. 

This made for a fun Saturday, and it let my mind be creative.  Here's to more of that!   

Snow Day 4 hit with actual snow!  We got 5-6 inches here, and it was beautiful.  Adam knows much better how to drive in the ice and snow, and we went over to my Aunt Laura's house just for a change of pace.  {My 4 Wheel Drive was quite useful this week!}

My mom was over there, too, so we just got to see more people!  AMP loves projects.  It worked out great, because Laura's front porch was completely frozen and snowed over and was quite hard to walk on.  He worked super-hard to clear a walkway, which was a huge help.

Then we tried to build a snowman, but The Iowan told me that the snow wasn't wet enough to roll.  I said, "Wait, you can actually roll snow??"  I had no idea--I thought that was only on movies with Charlie Brown or something.  :-)

  

 

I'd planned about a month ago to babysit the boys on Friday night.  I didn't feel comfortable driving about 30 minutes on the highway, so Adam volunteered to drive me over and help me keep them.  {Such a huge help and a treat!}  

We got to the door, three little heads popped up at the window.  They were bouncing up and down with huge smiles on their faces.  They weren't smiling at me, which is fine, because they were so excited to see Adam!  

In the three and a half hours before they went to bed, we played Candy Land, ate pizza, watched The Wiggles, and they were just bouncing off the walls, climbing all over Adam.   Finally I asked them if they had a big puzzle or something.  Graham brought down that huge number and letter puzzle, pictured above.  They all worked together to build it, and then Adam and I hid the letters and numbers all over the downstairs.  It was a HUGE HIT!!  Later, I was reading with Graham and then went up to see what everyone else was doing, and Adam and Knox were playing Sorry! and then Tinker Toys.  {Can you see they have the attention span of a gnat?!}  

The boys went to bed a little before 9.  I told them that if they got out of bed, they wouldn't have their dessert the next day.  It worked, because they stayed put!  Adam and I sat down and just looked at each other and reveled in the silence.  It was great--three boys are quite loud.  Then we played Rock Band until Jack and April got home.  I sang vocals and Adam totally rocked the guitar, which is much harder than I thought it would be!  

It was so nice to have Adam around helping me with the boys, and I know they loved having him there.   Today, the sun is shining finally and melting all this slush.  

Thank goodness!   

Happy Weekending, my friends!

Whoopie Pies and Other Snow Day Entertainment

Snow Day 2 was even better than the first one.  Claire made Whoopie Pies from a mix a student gave her for Christmas.  {To.Die.For.Delicious.}  We ventured out down the road for a trip to Sonic Happy Hour and then stopped by my aunt & uncles's house for a bit.  I didn't mind driving around, but it's just slow goin' around here, and you never know what other people are going to do out on the road.

We had some rice milk in our fridge from a gluten-free friend that came over earlier this week.  Claire thought she'd give it a try.  For a girl who doesn't like milk to begin with, we're not sure why she tried it in the first place.  Silly girl.

Adam pulled up right as we got back from our Sonic/Aunt Laura excursion and became our chauffeur for the rest of the evening and proceeded to entertain us. We ate dinner at a little local restaurant, thankfully still open!  Then we went to the grocery store for cinnamon rolls and a bottle of wine--two good things to have for another snow day, and finished up by playing a game of Bananagrams all together.   We've become the three musketeers lately!

Nothing's melting, the (non-rice) milk has gone sour and the store was out last night, too, but we're still smiling and working from home all bundled up and thankful for heaters and no power outages.  Here's to Day Three!

Ice, Fire & Dynamite

We've had the TV on a lot around here the last 48 hours, glued to the weather station and then moving on to other shows.  Parenthood still is at the top of my list of favorite shows, and it's really the only thing I've liked so far.  However, Biggest Loser is pretty cool, if you think about how people are really making a lifestyle change in the way they lose all that weight.  Kinda neat to watch.  

I've found a new group that I really like, thanks to Annie's blog.  Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors' new album comes out next week, and I can't wait.  I'd never heard of them until last night, but they are touring with Marc Broussard and Ben Rector.  This video of their song "Fire and Dynamite" makes me happy.  Check 'em out on iTunes.

We're on Day 2 of being snowed  iced in, and it's just peachy.  I'm thankful I went to the grocery store on Monday after work, because otherwise who knows what we would've scrounged up to eat around here.  Claire is well-stocked on Lean Cuisines, but I'm not so sure about those frozen lunchables.  :-)  I'm working from home and spend the majority of yesterday in my jammers, but after a workout today at our apartment gym, Claire and I decided to at least look presentable.  It's a nice feeling, even when you're not really seeing much of anyone! 

SMoo ended up driving over for our Turkey Chili dinner last night, and once she arrived (quite frazzled), she announced, "That was probably the stupidest thing I've done in a long time."  She lives just about a mile from us, but the road between us was basically a sheet of ice.  She ended up staying the night, and we stayed up 'til midnight and had a little slumber party.  She stayed well into the morning, and we all had breakfast and hung out together.  It was like we all lived together!  So fun.

Who knows what the roads will look like tomorrow--it's not getting any warmer here, so I'm not sure about the ice.  I think it's fine on all the major roadways (from what I can tell on the news), but it's the little side streets that are still sheets of ice.  We shall see...

Hope you're staying warm and have power on this chilly day!