babies

Today is my baby's birthday.  She's not much of a baby anymore- she's very tall, weights 25 pounds, has 6 teeth, says mama and dada, plays with Bella and Tuff, and is very close to walking.  She'll always be my baby though.

We went to a restaurant in Hastings called Me & Julio.  We went there a couple weeks ago for our wedding anniversary.  Of course we took K with us, and tonight when we went to celebrate K, they remembered us!  The owner (I think it's the owner/manager) is so sweet.  She came over to say hi to K, and we told her we came back for K's birthday because our anniversary dinner was SO delish.  We joked that with my birthday being next week, and Valentines day the week after, we'd be coming back a lot!

She smiled, and a few minutes later came back and gave us a gift card for one of our next visits!  We thought that was great, but then our server brought K a HUGE piece of cake and decorated the plate with "Happy 1st Birthday!"  It was SO good  : )

The piece of cake was just as big as K, and just as sweet!

Speaking of sweet, I was lucky enough to photograph twin baby girls this morning.  Oh.  My. Goodness.  I almost stole one. 

A beautiful mama and her beautiful girls.

It was a good day.

A party, the SAG awards, and a water table

My baby is 1 tomorrow.  I can't believe it!  We had a party on Friday night, and it was so fun!  We did make your own pizzas, used paper plates, and my friend Sadie made an adorable cake... it was low stress and I was able to enjoy the people who came to celebrate!

Thanks to everyone who came!

Last night were the SAG awards.  I really just like the red carpet portion of awards shows.  Last year during the SAG awards, I was trying to text my sister to ask her what channel they were on.  I was unable to spell the word "channel"... I couldn't spell it, think it, or say it.  I lost control of my right side, and started bawling.  I could only smile with half my face, and couldn't speak in full thoughts, much less sentences.  That freaked Brent out too, and we drove to the emergency room, where we were then sent to United, a big hospital in St. Paul.  I didn't have my hospital bag, I wasn't in Hastings, and for some reason I was upset because the dog wasn't there.  Weird.  From there I had an earring and a portion of my ear cut off for a CT scan, I was told I had scoliosis when they couldn't get the epidural in the first time, and had a heck of a time with heart rates and blood pressure, but at 1:36 on a Monday, the 31st, my beautiful baby girl was born.  Rachel Ray 30 minute meals was on the tv in the room.  I think K will grow up to be an excellent cook.  Or just really energetic and mildly annoying   : )

Today my mom gave her one of her birthday presents- a water table!  She wasn't so sure at first, but loved it, and of course I took 89 pictures in the process.

what i've been doing

I haven't been blogging much lately.

I've been too busy doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpD9Zdt1BPM

Not that actual class.... it's just a video of a turbo kick class.

Throw in a little zumba,

and some naps,

and extra showers.

Yikes.  It feels good to be exercising and I really want to lose weight, but my knee caps are a little shaky!  I'll keep you updated.

Tonight we're having a little birthday party with our friends, and tomorrow K and I go home to hang out with my mom for a few days.  I've already scouted out the workout classes at the Y down there!

I still can't believe my baby is almost 1!

a super weekend and skin

I had a super fun, but very busy weekend.

Friday night: Zumba, laundry, and butternut squash soup.
Saturday:  Pictures of these two lovely ladies-
Ellie:

And Regan:



After the photos, my mom and sister came and picked K and I up and we went shopping!  It was so fun.  We stayed overnight at a hotel near the mall of america, and then got to shopping Sunday morning after a delicious breakfast at the Original Pancake House.  YUM.

It got a little slick outside so my mom and sister headed home, and I went to take a few pictures for some almost one year olds!

We ended the weekend with a "breakfast for dinner" potluck with our bible study!  Fun, but busy weekend.

Something kinda funny happened yesterday though.  I realized I no longer have the skin of a 21 year old.  I got new makeup at MAC and had a mirror right up in my grill.  Yikes.  Apparently it's time to start taking better care of my skin.  I'm going to do a little research and try to find the best products to make my skin clean, moisturized, pore minimized and exfoliated..... with a supermodel glow.... without breaking the bank.



a castle, cupboards, and sauce

So for Christmas, K got a new castle!  We put it up this weekend, and she LOVES it.

I got new dishes for Christmas and just got around to opening the box and unpacking them... which then prompted me to semi-reorganize my kitchen.  We have a line of counter and cupboards that separates our kitchen and living room.  I've thought about taking them out all together, but decided to just take off the doors and put some of my prettier things on the shelves.  I like how it turned out!

And one more random thing for today, I made a delicious tomato sauce last night.  In the John Besh book I got for Christmas, he makes a sauce using cherry tomatoes.  I didn't know you could do that.  Usually when making sauce you have to peel and seed the tomatoes... and I can't imagine peeling a million little cherry tomatoes.  Anyway, here's what went into the sauce.



I just cut the onion up and sauteed it with a TINY bit of olive oil, then peeled the garlic and threw that in too.  I gave that a few minutes and then added the cherry tomatoes and the sweet peppers.  I just cut off the stems of the peppers, cut them in half, and threw them in.  And, lastly, two cans of stewed tomatoes.  I let it all cook on low until the tomatoes burst and the peppers softened, kind of like this:

I let this cook a bit longer, and turned off the heat.  I let it cool a bit, and then pureed it in my food processor.   I ended up adding some special sauce  (the burrito sauce my brother gets from California) when I heated it up again for a little kick.  I cooked some whole wheat pasta, threw the two together, and there you go!  So much more healthy and delicious than the canned variety!

And since I don't have a picture of the finished product, here is another picture of my girl!









My mama

Today is my mama's birthday!  She's the coolest lady ever.  I love spending time with my mom, and it seems like everything we do together is fun and exciting.  We text about 20 times a day, and it's weird to me if I don't know where she is.  We laugh about the same things, say the same things at the same time, and love the same tv shows.  She also really loves my hootie and has been such a good Grandma.  A few weeks ago I had to get all of my photos off of my old computer when it started to crash, and at that time I noticed that I had about 3 million pictures of my mom holding K.   Happy Birthday mom!  Here are a few of my favorites of you and K, and I can't wait to see you soon!

11 months

My little hootie is growing up a little too fast for me.   Luckily, I have 7.5 million photos documenting my baby getting bigger.  I took a few of her and Brent the other day... there was some really pretty light coming in.

good times and resolutions

So here are my resolutions:
1. Always acknowledge when someone has gone above and beyond what is expected, or just what I'm really grateful for.  Say I get awesome service at a store, I want to call the manager and say how great the employee is.  Or if a friend of family member helps me out with something, I want to write a thank you note, or even do something unexpected for them.  That's my number one resolution.  Take the time to thank people,
2.  Lose weight.  Enough about that.

And a few more that I will be stoked if they happen, but understand if they don't
3.  Keep my house super clean and organized
4.  Use more lotion.  I'm getting nervous about wrinkles
5.  Take pictures of things I don't usually take-  sunsets, or architecture, etc.

Okay!  Well, here are a few pictures and moments from the last few days.  We had an ugly Christmas sweater party Friday night, a new years eve party last night, and spent the afternoon with my grandparents today.

I only took one picture Friday night, but it's a cute one!

Sadie did such an amazing job with the new years eve party.  She had everything displayed so nicely, and all of the food was delicious!!  It was also really fun to spend time with our friends!

It was wonderful to spend the afternoon today with my grandparents.  K was such a ham!  My grandma said she's just make a "simple little lunch."  We had a beef roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, jello with mandarin oranges, buns, and pumpkin pie.    : )

Happy New Year!