Our FIRST Ever Halloween Party...

...so last night, Matt and I headed to fellow blogger Angie's house for a Halloween Party! I was super excited because I'd never been to a Halloween party and dressed up. When we got there, we couldn't see the house numbers but I knew it was the right house because I saw precious Daisy in the front door waiting to greet us.

Here is Angie with Daisy (and the girl in the background was the girl from NCIS-he costume was awesome!).

Other bloggers were there as well, here we are all dressed up. From left me as Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus, Heidi as a Witch, Angie as Beth from Dog the Bounty Hunter and Randall as her half of H1N1 (they won most creative costume!).

It was a great time! Matt found a new best friend in Mr. Fab-they're going to be hunting buddies, Angie's house was super cute and I had a fun time catching up with everyone. We're going to go to Main Street in St. Charles in December for their Christmas Traditions so it should be another good time.

Okay, now off the blog because we're having lunch with Grandma G for her birthday today, then I'm working games for the neighborhood Halloween party and we have to find time to carve our pumpkin before the kids trick-or-treat then who knows what tomorrow will bring!!! Happy Halloween tonight! I hope you all get treated and not tricked.

5.5 Down and Well, Here We Go...

...so since October 8, I've swam 5.5 miles! My original goal was to swim 10 by the end of the year and as you can, I think I'm definately going to reach that goal. So I've decided to bump it up and set my goal to 25 miles before December 31. So far I'm still on track and swimming today is just a bonus day (which means any laps I swim today, I wasn't planning on).

As far as the push-ups go, since I've started (October 10), I've done over 470+ push-ups!?! Let me tell ya ladies, my arms are sore. I just walk around the office doing arm circles...its kind of funny. The best push-up story so far is the other night, I had brought Matt home dinner from Cracker Barrell (yum!) and I was in the living room floor. I looked at him and said, "Count 'em!" and started doing my push-ups. As I finish, I look up at him and he's licking the plate. I'm panting out of breathe and look at him, "So I guess you didn't count..."

So it seems as though I have the exercise thing down but I still haven't lost any weight. I can't really say that I'm surprised because I have to be honest with myself and I haven't had any restraint eating all the Halloween candy around the office or the Khaldi's cookies one of the moms brought in the other day...all I can say about the cookies is...HEAVEN! So maybe after this weekend, I'll get on the food wagon and then watch the pounds just shed away.

Sidenote: I put Matt's truck on Craigslist and so far we've had 2 phone calls and 2 emails in less than 24 hours. The most interesting phone call went something like this:

Matt: Hello?
Caller: Hi, I was calling about the truck on Craigslist.
Matt: Okay, what questions do you have?
Caller: Would you want to trade it for a motorcycle?
Matt: Umm....no.
Caller: Okay, bye.

How weird!?! Happy Halloween! I actually remembered to wear my Halloween shirt I bought three years ago and have only worn once! It's going to be another busy, busy weekend!!!

Lovin' the Recipe Emails...

...I signed up on Parents and All Recipes and they send me fun ideas and recipes and I could spend HOURS just looking through them all. The only thing is I always print them off but rarely make them. In an effort to be green, I’ll just window shop the recipes unless I know I’m going to make it. Also, if I find a recipe and it has more than like 5 or 6 ingredients or something crazy that I’ve never heard of, well, then that recipe will NEVER get printed off in any type of effort to make it. Here is a link to Smoky Mac-n-Cheese that looks yummo!!!

Please leave me a comment with a link to your favorite online recipe!

Final Decision on the Truck...I think...

...so Monday Matt got the steering column fixed which is what caused it to slip out of gears in the first place. Since the accident, his truck is "wobbly" in his words and he can't go over 45 which is a problem for a husband that has a need for speed! So he took it to the Ford place yesterday to see what they said and the guy said we'd never get what we put in it to fix it but we could probably get at least $2,000 maybe even $3,500 with the truck bed messed up plus with the insurance money to fix it then that would be an even bigger down payment than we expected AND we haven't even dipped into our savings yet!?! So the truck is back at the shop today to have the "wobble" fixed and then it'll go on the market and Matt and I will be carpooling until at least March (unless I break down and we tighten our spending before then).

Now, let me just tell you something...I have told him we should do this the ENTIRE time!!! Fix what we can to make it safe and drivable then sell it as is. Did he listen to me? No but when the Ford guy told him this then it was a GREAT idea!!! Seriously, this happens all the time...ALL THE TIME! I'll say something like, "Hey! I've heard this restaurant is good, we should try it out." Matt will ignore me or disagree then a couple days later Matt will say, "Hey! Rob at work said this restaurant is good-let's try it out!" Really? Really, did he? Because I'm pretty sure I said the same thing two days ago!!! Just because I don't know much about trucks or trees or hunting, doesn't mean I am totally clueless!!! He even does this on stuff that I'm definitely more knowledgable about for instance, where I work FT at, he works PT. I told him, "You'll get time and a half for working on New Year's Day." His response, "No, we don't. The guys told me so." Really? Really did they? Because I'm pretty sure that I supervise 50+ more part-time employees than they do and I have to approve their holiday pay! Then two weeks later, he comes home, "Hey! Melanie at work said we get time and a half for working New Year's Day." Insert eye roll here. Really?

Latest and Greatest from the Painted Pot...

...so the other night when Matt's truck rolled down the hill by itself, I was at the Painted Pot with my friend Stevie. Here is the bowl that I made for my MIL for Christmas. I am picturing her serving mashed potatoes in this bowl...

So...what'd ya think???

Odd Dream...

…I had the weirdest dream the other night. I had a baby. It was a girl. I named her Freda. WHAT!?! I remember in the dream that I had the baby in a room with a nurse and my mom but Matt wasn’t there so that’s why I named her Freda. I must have been waking up towards the end of the dream because I remember thinking, I don’t like this name…can I still change it? The best part though was that my baby Freda was really smart because after just a couple of days she was already saying, “Mommy!” How weird is that…

Pumpkin Picnic and Dusty's Fish Fry...

...Saturday was crazy busy!!! The first picture is backwards but here is our neighbors house that got TP-ed early Sunday morning. We got home around midnight and it wasn't done yet.

So Saturday afternoon, I held the Pumpkin Picnic at work. Here is a picture of Haley AKA Dorothy and Cody AKA The Knight in Shining Armor!

Haley's getting her first tooth BUT the baby tooth is probably going to have to be pulled because the adult tooth isn't pushing the baby tooth out...bummer of a way to lose your first tooth.

Then our good friend Dusty is home from a two week visit from Iraq so his dad held a fish fry and EVERYONE came over. They were playing the LONGEST games EVER of Beer Pong. Dusty (the one with glasses) was saying nice shot while Aunt Trish is snapping pictures. We also got to meet Dusty's girlfriend for the first time (she's the one taking a drink) and she was pretty awesome PLUS she made this delicious peanut butter and chocolate pie that I will be getting the recipe because it was just that good.

In addition to the Welcome Home Party, it was Walker's birthday!!! At about 10pm, we celebrated with Dairy Queen ice cream cake-yum!!! His parents put trick candles on and Walker was so cute because he just kept blowing and blowing and blowing...

That concludes our busy Saturday. Sunday we dropped Matt's truck off to get the gear shift thing fixed and LUCKILY (moms are awesome and always pull through), my mom is in Florida this week so she left us her car to use and her laptop!!! Thanks mom!

2.5 down, 7.5 to go...

...at the end of this week, I will have swam 2.5 miles since I started on October 8!!! So only 7.5 left until I reach my 10 mile goal!!! I still have to do my push-ups for today but so far in two weeks, I've done over 200 push-ups. Let me tell ya ladies, my arms are SORE!!! Hopefully I'll be motivated to do this in the spring so I can get some good looking arms for tank top season. I have to max out this weekend before I start week 3 so I'll be doing that this weekend along with working a special event, going to Haley's soccer game and possibly a whirlwind trip to Cape for my grandma's birthday, checking out a truck and dropping off my computer. Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

Update on Truck and Other Stuff...

...so know how we were 90% sure they were going to total out the truck? Well, we were 90% wrong! The insurance company must have read my blog about how impatient I was and, well actually Matt had to call them, but they sent us a very nice check to get it fixed. Now we have a couple of options to think about but for the immediate time being, Matt is going to have that whole gear shirt slipping thing fixed which he took by the shop yesterday and they said that would only cost a couple hundred bucks so at least then it will be drivable, safe and I'll get my parking spot back under the carport.

We really haven't discussed the options or what to do yet because when I got home from work, snake swimming, etc...I flipped on my computer to find the blue screen of death. After being totally bummed out and eating a couple mini Snickers, I call Matt and he tells me he's almost home, he talked to the insurance company and he'll discuss it when he gets home. I'm like um...okay but I only have 10 minutes because I had to go meet Sarah for our Tuesday Walking. So he comes home and as he starts to tell me about the insurance, the first part goes something like this, "So my brother and I were really surprised with how much money..." Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up! You called and discussed this with your brother before me?

I know in the big scheme of things it doesn't really matter but let me tell you the back story. I'm a Daddy's Girl...big time. Not because I'm his "little girl" and Daddy just loves me but because I was raised by my dad. In fifth grade, my parents got divorced and my sister stayed home to go to college to help my dad out. In 8th grade, she got engaged and moved out so from 8th grade (think 1997) until I graduated college (2004), it was just me and my dad. Dad could fix anything, make everything better and no other dad was better than mine...that's just how it was. So when Matt and I got married, I'd always want to call my dad when a tree fell on the house, I decided to get life insurance, I had a nail in my tire, my credit card gets stolen, etc...It irritated Matt to no end (as it well should). Now don't get me wrong, Matt loves my dad and my dad loves Matt. Most of the time when I call my dad, the first thing he says is what's Matt think? So I've been trying very hard to keep that in mind when things happen like my tire a couple of weeks ago.

SO when Matt tells me that he's already discussed this with his brother before even telling me anything, I'm a little annoyed...okay, A LOT! I call him out on this and he thinks I'm just being mean so I'm like okay fine whatever, we'll talk about this when I get back. So I load up my blue screen of death laptop and my pretty puppy dog Emma and leave. (Anyone that knows me, knows that Emma and my laptop are two of the most important things to me so Matt was probably wondering if I was coming back!?!). So Emma and I meet Sarah and we walk about a 1.5 or 2 miles then I head to Best Buy to find out that its either the hard drive or the mother board. I can purchase the hard drive and if its not that then I can return it within 30 days but, of course, Best Buy doesn't have the hard drive I need in stock.

So now that I've cooled down, I call Matt to see if he wants me to pick up dinner. He says no and that he's on his way to Home Depot because the kitchen sink is clogged. Great! Seriously, what else could break or go wrong at our house....the truck, my laptop, the kitchen sink...So I come home and sit down to eat my dinner and Matt starts sodering (not sure if I spelled that right but you know that thing with the blow torch?) because he's going to go ahead and fix the pipes in the demo-ed bathroom while he's at it. About 10 minutes after working, the smoke alarm goes off....for the next 20 minutes!?! So then his dad comes over and they work until about 9pm, hammering, sodering (spelling?), yelling from upstairs to downstairs THEN Matt heads to his second job. His dad came back over last night to kind of like Roto Root the drain and Matt is supposed to work on it tonight since it's cleared up (sorry that's all vague and non-descriptive but I really have no idea what's going on with all that). I'm very thankful that Matt and his dad can do that sort of stuff because I'm sure if someone came in and did it, it would be tons of dollars. SO...I still don't have a kitchen sink or dishwasher so the dishes are just piling up in the sink. So the whole point of that was to tell you that since its been one thing after another, we really haven't had time to discuss what to do with the truck other than fix the immediate problem so it's safe to drive. Whew! What a story!!!

So on a positive note, since I don't have a laptop to distract me, I finished all the gift tags for the craft show!!! I even got them all in bags so they are ready to sell. Now I just have to work on the notecards but I'm having a problem cutting straight with the tools my mom told me to use. She'll be at my house on Friday so hopefully she can set me straight then. ALSO, some good friends of ours who we haven't talked to in AGES but the girl and I keep making tentative plans on Facebook but nothing ever comes from it, called me last night and we finally set up our dinner date!!! It'll be great to catch up with them because I don't think we've seen them since my birthday (March) and they've gotten engaged and I haven't even heard the whole story yet!?! I'm sure Matt and Ben will talk about manly stuff while Missey and I discuss wedding stuff.

So that my friends is the update on the truck...and other stuff.

Heebie Jeebies...

...so I've posted about how I'm trying to swim 10 miles before the end of the year, right? So yesterday, I'm swimming when the lifeguard looks at me and tells me to get out of the pool. I'm climbing up the ladder and I ask what's wrong. He replies, "I think it's a snake!" I jumped the last two steps out and get the heebie jeebies. Sure enough in the lane beside me is about a 6-inch snake swimming back and forth. Thankfully Tuesdays are my walking days with Sarah so I said I'm done with swimming for today. Ew! Ew! Ew!!! I hope he's not back there when I go today.

Thanks for all the advice with the truck purchase. I'll have an update tomorrow about the truck and our house in general. When it rains, it pours...

'Lil Help Bloggers...

...okay so I'm so tired of looking for a used truck online! Everytime I type in Ford 250, it pulls up big 'ole white cargo vans!?! So if any of you can leave a recommendation of what websites to use or places you would suggest to look for new trucks, it would be greatly appreciated.

SIDE NOTE: I'm so over the insurance company! Matt called them on Friday, they came and looked at the truck yesterday and we still haven't heard from them. I know that's not a very long time but we can't go get the gear shifts fix which is why it rolled down a hill in the first place until we know if they are going to pay to fix it or just total it out and give us money. I don't even feel safe having it home in our driveway much less at his work!?! So come on insurance...how 'bout a Yatizee!!!

Funny Picture...

Stylish Suri Screams for Ice Cream - Goddess: celebrity moms - omg! on Yahoo
...this is a story about Suri Cruise going out for ice cream. Click on the link and look at the first picture. It looks like Katie Holmes is holding her but she still has her arms at her side. I had to do a double take on this one and then I got a good chuckle out of it. Hope you enjoy it too!

Busy, Busy Weekend...

...This weekend was another crazy, busy one! Friday night we had the Fair Appreciation Dinner. It was great to see everyone that is basically our family for an entire week in July when we're all at the Fair every single night and day!!!

Saturday when Matt got off work, we headed to Eureka for Haley's soccer game only to get halfway there and find out it was cancelled...bummer! We passed Rombach's Farm on the way there and that place was CRAZY!?! They had people directing traffic and parking cars where ever they could fit them!!! That evening we headed out to Troy for a Bonfire at my friend/co-worker/blog stalker Paula's. It was fun and they have the cutest house. Paula did a great job decorating it.

Here is a picture of Paula, me and Stevie.
Right after that picture we all turned into ghosts and haunted my camera!

Matt left from Paula's to go to the farm to bow hunt today. At lunch time, he hadn't shot anything yet. I haven't heard from him yet this evening so maybe he got one!

I was a busy little bee this morning at the house though...did some laundry, cut coupons, planned out a Wags trip and finished up some gift tags that my mom and I are making for the craft show in three weeks. Then I met up with some relatives to discuss their wedding. I'm going to be their day of coordinator even though I don't have red hair (Kristal, you'll get that). I'm all excited about her wedding now and can't wait to help out but it's still a year away (10-2-10). Then I went to watch Haley play soccer and give my sister some toilet paper rolls for a project for Haley's classroom (we ALWAYS save toilet paper rolls in our family-always a craft to make). On my way home from there, I stopped at Wags to score some deals and I was pretty happy with what I got until I got home and realized I still had a coupon in my hoodie pouch that I didn't use...bummer. Now, I'm in my pajamas, waiting for my hubs and chilling with the dogs before I start this week. Next weekend is pretty much an all work weekend but its been nice to have the past couple of weekends off. Hope you all had a great weekend!!!

Matt's Truck & Fair Dinner...

...so Friday evening, we went to the Fair Dinner Appreciation. Matt and Tom were so excited to go. I snapped a picture of the two of them. Boys! They can never look at the camera and smile!

Here are two pictures of Matt's truck after the incident Thursday evening.

First off, thank you everyone for all the sweet, positive comments...you really made me feel better. Secondly, I spent all day Friday crunching numbers and looking for a truck in our price range. I found one that I think Matt likes but it's so hard to tell with him and he's so specific about what he wants!?! I had to call the Ford dealership today though and ask if the trucks with the half doors (crew cabs, super cabs, suicide doors...whatever you want to call them) would fit a baby seat in the back because we're hoping the new truck will last us until we have a baby. They said it would so Matt perked up about the truck I found. We're going to wait and see what the insurance company says next week, hopefully we'll know by Wednesday and if they are just going to total it out then we might make a whirlwind trip to Cape next Sunday to check out this truck. So many what-ifs to deal with in the next week or so but we're just trying to stay cool and taking it in stride. Thanks again for all the positive thoughts! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend-the sun if FINALLY out here-yah!!!

I'm a Horrible Wife...

...seriously, 4 days after our one year anniversary and I've failed as a wife. Last night, Matt went to a banquet and I went to the Painted Pot with a friend. When I got home at about 8:30pm, I left both phones in the car. About 9pm, I see Matt pull in the driveway and come inside. He told me he was worried about me because he'd been calling and I didn't answer. I tell him I'm okay, we talk briefly about the banquet he was at and then he heads out.

Fast foward to 11pm...For some reason, I couldn't fall asleep. I'm usually out like a baby about 9:30pm or earlier so I heard Matt come in. I start talking to him and realize he's not responding, I sit up and look at him and he's near tears. I go into panic mode-what's wrong? are you okay? He just nods and is like I don't want to tell you this...great, another speeding ticket I'm thinking. Nope...worse...his truck slipped out of gears, rolled down a hill and hit a tree. He said he'd tried to call me and didn't get ahold of me at this point, I...feel...awful! I'm a horrible, bad wife. I ALWAYS take my phone in at night but last night since I got home later, I told myself oh its late...no one will call. Now I know I will ALWAYS take my phone in. I absolutely feel like I'm the worst person in the world...

So for the next couple of hours (think bedtime around 1am and alarm waking us up at 5:45am), we figured out our game plan and I feel pretty good about the couple we came up with. We might be down to one car for the next couple of weeks (or month) and we'll be adding to our debt but we'll be okay.

It just totally sucks because literally Wednesday evening (the night before this), Matt and I had this discussion about his truck and he was going to take it in next week to get it checked and we agreed that we'd try to get the truck to last until February 2011 NOT October 2009. We were finally get ahead on some of our debt and then this. Seriously, if its not one thing then its another, two steps forward and one step back...GRRR!!!

To end on a positive note, I'm going to tell you the good things, or not so bad, that came out of this. As a married couple, this is probably one of the first "big" decision and issue that we've had. I would say that we handled it very well. We sat together calmly, discussed without interrupting each other and didn't place blame on each other. I'm very proud of us...especially me because I have the tendancy to fly off the handle about the smallest things (such as drinking all the milk and leaving a millimeter in the jug for three days because he's "leaving some for me"). Secondly, if this were to happen, it happened at the right place and right time...no one was involved or hurt, nothing else was damaged and he made it home safely. Lastly, even if we get down to one car, our work places are maybe 10 minutes away from each other and I actually pass by the nursery every day on my way to and from work so it really won't be that bad. I just thank God for everyone and everything being okay, I just hope He helps us out in the next couple of weeks to stay patience and work things out.

1 Down, 9 to Go...

...I swam my first mile!!! So I have one down and nine to go before the end of 2009. The Push-Up Challenge has also been going well. I did have to switch from toe (boy) push-ups to knee (girl) push-ups. Everyone at work thinks I'm a baby for doing this but I know I wasn't doing the toe (boy) ones right so I'd rather do it right then only half-a$$ them. Since last Friday, I've done 75 push-ups all together. Week 1 will be done tomorrow and then I'm sure I'll have to turn it up next week. Also, I want to tell everyone to jump over to Katie's Blog to see pictures from Kasey & Garrett's wedding last weekend-she did an AWESOME job as always. Don't worry, there's only like 10 pics up so you don't have to scroll through 500. Leave her a comment and let her know what you think. Everyone have a fabulous weekend!!!

Trauma & Drama...

...there is a new show on NBC called "Trauma"and I absolutely LOVE it!!! Here is the cast:


Here's how their website describes it:

From executive producer Peter Berg (NBC's "Friday Night Lights") comes "Trauma," the first high-octane medical drama series to live exclusively in the field where the real action is. Like an adrenaline shot to the heart, "Trauma" is an intense, action-packed look at one of the most dangerous medical professions in the world: first responder paramedics. When emergencies occur, the trauma team from San Francisco City Hospital is first on the scene, traveling by land, by sea or by air to reach their victims in time. From the heights of the city's Transamerica Pyramid to the depths of the San Francisco Bay, these heroes must face the most extreme conditions to save lives -- and give meaning to their own existence in the process.

There's only been three episodes so you can still catch up plus their website has full episodes you can watch from your computer!

Now on to drama...I think when I was younger I used to like drama. My boss used to tell me that I would be in a much better mood after confrontation. At the slumber party a couple weekends ago, we were discussing all of the drama we had back in the day. If some of that same stuff happened today, I would not touch it with a 10 ft pole.

Nowadays, I don't like drama, I despise drama, I hate it with a passion, I avoid it at all costs, its like chess I try to think of the next move in everything just to avoid drama. But somehow, drama finds me, it always does and usually in the weirdest ways. My way of dealing with drama these days is to avoid it, act like it didn't happen or ignore everything related to the drama, it usually works...most of the time, except when the other person is the same way. Now I have to face that crossroad and figure out what to do. Wish me luck...I'm going to need it.

Garrett & Kasey Tie the Knot...

...Saturday afternoon, we headed to Garrett and Kasey's wedding where they become husband and wife. During the ceremony, Matt taps me and whispers, "Is that our photographer?" I glance over and smile as I catch Katie's eye...sure enough it was! Kasey used my recommendation to use Katie Beach as her photog but silly Kasey never told me that!!!

It was a very country themed wedding filled with words on the invite such as Howdy, join us for the round-up and boot-scootin'. The pew decor were bandanas and the centpieces were tomatoes (I wish they would have let me know I could have given them some!). Here is a picture of the bride and groom entering the reception.

Me and Hubs...I had to change outfits. I wore a dress to the wedding and was freezing so I changed into pants and a long sleeved shirt for the reception.

After a second wedding reception and a trip to Rookies, I realized I'd forgotten to set out our wedding cake for our anniversary on Sunday!!! As soon as we got home (about 1am), I got it out of the deep freeze and set it out to thaw. We ate it late Sunday night after dinner at the Melting Pot and it was actually pretty good. We each just ate a little bit and we're going to wrap it up and try to save it again until next year!

Now today, we are both off work. Matt is doing a side job this morning (he wasn't supposed to but the silly rain last week messed it all up and he HAS to get it done this week). So when he gets home this afternoon, we're going to see a movie and then I'm making Tater Tot Casserole for dinner. Matt LOVES that stuff and BEGS for me to make it. I'm not sure what's so special about it but he makes me feel special because he loves it so much. So that my friends concludes our anniversary celebration.

To the One I Love...

...Happy Anniversary Mattie! One year down and a lot to go! What a year it's been!!!!

Let's get the party started!!!!

Love you pretty!!!

Another G Card...

...I told ya, I told ya I'd keep buying those G cards. I found a new one at Michael's and here it is.

It was the only one in the bin so it was fate that I found it! Matt likes this one best out of them all so I'll let him use it (more like I'll have to write it and he'll sign!).

Friday Ups and Downs

...so I got to work today, already stressed out about an issue I had to deal with and then my co-worker comes in and tells me my tire was flat!!! Great! I tried getting ahold of Matt but he didn’t answer so I called good ‘ole Dad. Dad told me to call AAA (duh-why didn’t I think of that!?!). So they came out and got my spare tire and fixed it. Here is a pic of my car with the spare tire on.

Then about 11ish, these roses came from hubs!!! Our anniversary is Sunday and he knows I love getting flowers at work (don't mind the camp stuff in the background).

The card said, "I was thinking of you today. I knew you were the one from the start. Love, Matthew Groeteke." So sweet!!! Don't you love that he signed our last name!?! He's silly. So it was a nice upper to my downer down. Thank you pretty!

Thursday Tidbits...

...so I have lots of things to post today. First off, last night I met four of my college friends for dinner at Tony's on Main Street in St. Charles. Not too bad...go figure, I ordered the White Chicken Nachos (I just LOVE Mexican food) and OMG those things were SPICY!!! I drank so much water trying to cool my mouth that I could have floated home!!! It was good to catch up with them as so much is changing in all of our lives. I wish we could get together more often. We left deciding that we're going to try to find a Trivia Night to attend so our guys can all meet so if anyone knows of one coming up....let me know!!!

I got there before everyone and their was a German band playing and the street was closed down for people to dance in the streets. It was good entertainment until my girls arrived.

I picked up my plate from the Painted Pot and here it is!

I am pretty thrilled with how it turned out! I hope Kasey and Garrett like it.

Other tidbits:

*I swam a little over a quarter of a mile today! At work they have a Mileage Club so my goal is to try to swim 10 miles by the end of the year. I'll keep you updated on my progress. I feel really tired which is good because I hate working out and then you don't sweat or feel like you worked out at all.

*Matt and I are going to start the Hundred Push-Up Challenge next week. Tonight we have to do our intial test to see how many we can do. I'm kind of excited about it, I made a tracking sheet and everything (Matt thinks I'm a big dork!).

*I have decided to start printing all my pictures off starting in 2007 (when Matt and I started dating)because I started thinking and what if something were to happen to me....would my kids or family know my password to get pics out of Kodak? What if I don't print out any pics and then I die and then there are no pictures of me in print!?! So I'm slowly printing them all off (waiting for deals to print some). So far I have all of 2007 done and then a little bit of 2009.

*I printed off the majority of our honeymoon pictures and bought a photo album for them so that is what I will be working on tonight plus finishing gift tags for the craft show my mom and I are doing the first weekend of November.
*I'm excited because this weekend I get my husband all to myself and it's our anniversary!!! Well, kind of to myself, Saturday, we're going to a wedding but then Sunday-just him and me! We're going to go to church Sunday morning (we haven't gone since spring because he's worked EVERY weekend or we've been out of town)then to yummy dinner at the Melting Pot that evening then we both took Monday off work to just hang out and chill together! This time last year, I was off work for a week and a half...how nice!

Cabbage Patch Kids...

...we all had them when we were younger. My sister and I each had a boy and a girl Cabbage Patch Kid, hers had hair and mine were bald because she was the older sister. Our parents wouldn't let us change their names so what was on the birth certificate was their names. I realized the other night that two of our dolls had grown up to be a CSI!

My dolls names were Lottie and Gil. Lottie is a variation of Carol or Caroline. I guess when the company is mass producing dolls and they all have to have different names, they use everything and anything. Gil grew up to be Gil Grissom from the original Vegas CSI...I must have been a great Cabbage Patch mother!


My sister's dolls looked more like this one with hair:


My sister's dolls names were Callie and we can't think of the guy dolls name (we got in this huge argument which ended with us both saying we thought the other one was wrong-love ya bye!). So her's grew up to be Callie Duquesne from CSI: Miami.

Let's hope that our real life children (unborn included since I have none) grow up to be just as successful. So what did your Cabbage Patch Dolls grow up to be or what were their crazy names???

Calling All Pizza Lovers!!!

...if you love pizza and want to attempt making it then I've found the perfect website for you. Actually, my co-worker Ezra found it (he's a blog stalker so I thought I'd give him a shout out). It is called PizzaManiac.com. They have directions for pizza dough, pizza sauce, traditional pizza to PBJ pizza (not quite sure how I feel about that one). Ezra has made a couple of pizzas from this website and I told him to take pictures and I'd do a post on it (everyone at work always has something interesting to blog about but they say they don't have enough for a blog so I told them they could be guest bloggers on mine). He said they turned about great (I was going to say fab but that's more my word) and that his family loved them and were very impressed. Good luck if you attempt to make one of these delicious pizzas...I was looking at the Taco Pizza...maybe dinner sometime in the next month???

Puppies and Butterflies...

...WARNING: these are the cutest pictures EVER!!! This is my sorority sister and high school classmate, Wendy's dog. Shiloh found this butterfly outside. Look at how lovable and cute Shiloh is, that butterfly must have thought the same thing.

How precious! Thank you Wendy for letting me borrow these pictures.

Pure Romance...

...so Saturday after work, I headed over to The Painted Pot in St. Charles (south side of O'Fallon) to meet up with my friend Kasey and her bachelorette party. I made her a platter with her and her soon to husband's name on it and the other girls made wine and martini glasses and beer steins. We decorated them all in black, red and white to match their kitchen. I will post after-pictures when I get my platter later this week.

Here is a picture of us with our finished masterpieces (they just have to be glazed and fired now). I am on the end in red, then her bridesmaid Laura, Kasey-the bride in pink, her sister Kay (don't they look so much alike), and then her other bridesmaid Miranda.

After The Painted Pot, things got spiced up when we all headed back to Kay's for a Pure Romance party. The "icebreaker" was like Hot Potato but with a...umm...bedroom toy. We were all in tears from laughing so hard. Even though I'd just met most of the girls for the first time, after the party, I feel VERY close to them all now!!! We all bought Kasey a gift which she was sooo embarassed about so I bought her bubble bath/shower gel-she was so thankful it wasn't anything embarassing. I had so much fun with this group of girls!!! The wedding is this coming Saturday so I'll be sure to post about that. I hope you all had a fabulous Saturday too!

Unwanted Guest...

...we have an unwanted guest staying in our backyard...it's a mole!!! Shadow has caught some in the past so I let the doggies stay out back yesterday for about an hour or so (it was so beautiful) and I looked out back and saw this:

Usually we would not want him to dig but in this case, GO SHADOW GO!!! I didn't walk out there to see if he got it because I didn't want to deal with a dead mole-eww!!!

Tonight I tried a new recipe for Pumpkin Chili. I didn't quite get the right chili taste so it wasn't great. It was decent but it wasn't anything I'd be like, "OH! Let's make that again!" Matt was afraid of it and he wouldn't even eat seconds because he said, "I didn't care for it." Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Tomorrow I'm making sauerkraut and polish sausage for Matt because he loves sauerkraut so I hope it turns out better than the pumpkin chili.