Here is a bit of this and that…..

Keith and I went up to Minnesota for a quick trip-up Saturday morning, left around 7:30 on Sunday.  I enjoyed some serious shopping (though I came home about empty handed), some time on Russell Ave and an AMAZING lunch at Big Bowl.  Oh my, how I miss that place, it is so darn good!  Plus I was really excited for some pot stickers and I did a foursquare check-in and they had a special for free ones.  SCORE!  I was hoping to buy the chair I have been looking at for months now and I didn’t really like it when I saw it in person, it was much smaller than I thought it would be.  As always, it feels odd to see the old house and not be able to go in. I guess it feels less and less like our home.  I wish we could have seen more people while there, but it was a quick trip. 

The boys stayed with mom and had lots of fun doing projects, playing with Cade and eating at Chips.  Even though we were only gone a day, I think Dylan must have missed me a bit, he stayed pretty close to my lap all day SundayJ  Which I don’t mind a bit! 

This is my 9^th week already at the new job!  Hard to believe it’s been that long.  Still adjusting to some corporate changes – now I understand more of Keith’s life with SAP systems and waiting for things to happen.  I also have a lot of logins and passwords.  TWELVE!!!  Keith told me he has like 30, so maybe a dozen isn’t too bad.  Seriously though, between all those and the rest it’s amazing I remember half of them.  They have a spice sale every few months, so I totally loaded up last week.  I don’t think we will be needing any spices for a LONG time!  Hit me up if you are running low or what to try some new ones. 

The boys talk A LOT these days!!!  Non-stop at times, then they get mad trying to talk over each other.  Carter is always like I CAN’T TALK!!!  Our car ride to Baxter this weekend started with a long discussion about planets, to when Dylan broke his arm, to monsters – now we have been dealing with ghosts too- to about every song we know – half sung together, the other half they have to sing all by their self.  Lately Carter keeps saying his favorite color is white.  Totally random, but he is sticking to it.  For a few days Dylan's favorite color was yellow, then he added black and since has added green and about 4 other colors.  I told one of them I thought their favorite color was blue and they said, last summer that was my favorite.   So they sure do keep things interesting! 

Three weeks from now we will be at Disney World!  We are getting pretty excited. Except, what the heck am I going to wear? 

Loving the nice warm days we are having here and there.  Yesterday was 50, I told Keith I just can’t go back.  Plus the days are getting longer, so it’s nice to have a bit more sunlight.

I ate lunch at MaidRite today – these are only in Iowa and quite tasty.  Any of you who do foursquare – I’m the mayor at the Ankeny one. Not sure how I feel about that.  Anyway, between the cheese balls (another Iowa specialty) and a malt, I’ve been stuffed all DAY!

I guess I have rambled long enough nowJ 

SNOW DAY

I'm really starting to enjoy our unseasonably warm weather we have been having!  However, we did have one super snowy day early this Feb.  I guess Polk City got 9 inches.  It was the perfect snow for playing in. It wasn’t too cold outside and perfect for making snowmen and other fun things.  Keith’s parents were up for the weekend and his family all came over too, so we had lots of fun playing in the snow.  There were many creative snowmen in the neighborhood by the end of the day.  The boys shoveled in the morning and built this mini snowman.  Then later they took it up a notch and built a bigger one.  However I told Keith he better plan on using that bottom ball as the head b/c that’s how big our neighbor’s snowman was.  I took on building a fort, I think the boys liked it, but didn’t spend countless hours in it!

Tonight we had our last Jitter Bug class for this session.  I didn't sign the boys up for March because we would miss half the classes, I'm trying to get them back in for April.  Unfortunately, we are on a waiting list.  

The boys had a blast tonight, they got to swing on this bar that was hanging from the ceiling.  I can't imagine how their arms and shoulders are going to feel tomorrow- they must of each taken10 turns.  You should have seen their faces, all smiles!!!!  Totally makes the class worth it.  They told me they were way up high by the sky:)  

Dylan above

Carter Below

Wordless Wednesday

Hello hoarders!!!

We still have some nasty boxes in the basement full of things we think we need, but have no place to put them! So I have been working on tackling some of these mystery boxes!  One box held the treasures from the junk drawer at our old house.  We have been trying to be better about letting go and are trying to throw away this massive amount of paper we have collected over the years.  I decided I probably wasn’t going to review those notes from a few of my final marketing classes and Keith had plenty of notebooks full of coursework between ISU and St. Thomas.  I won’t even get started with his collection of owner’s manuals.  I tossed a bunch that we had from the old house.  We have about 5 binders of old bills that I think is just time to go!!!  Dylan helped me test out a huge bag of markets/pens and we tossed about half of those.

I bought a couple cheap shelves at Target to store some of these things. Cheap is right, after Keith put them together he told me they were junk and I’m afraid he is right.  They will probably only be good for a year or two.

Dylan found a VHS tape and asked me what that wasJ  So I guess the boys are learning fun things too as they help!

Regardless, I want to say we are making PROGRESS!!!

When I pulled this Grabel bag of screws, I was a bit concerned as to what they could possibly belong to.  Then I realized it’s all the nuts/bolts to our cribs!  Good thing I found this bag.  And good luck to Keith when it comes time to put that back together.

My favorite soup

I thought I would share with all of you my favorite soup recipe.  Not only because it is delicious, but because it is SO DARN EASY!!!!

It is a Cheese Tortellini Soup (and I should mention I stole this recipe from a former JTM co-worker)

Ingredients

1 bottle of V8 (I use regular V8, there are a lot of varieties out there)

½ - ¾ bag of fresh spinach (I wouldn’t recommend using any other types)

1 package of Buitoni three cheese tortellini (Again, I’ve tried other brands, not as good)

1 T dried basil

Shredded parmesan cheese

Mix V8, Spinach (chop finely), torellini and basil in large pan.  Cook until tortellini is well cooked.  Add shredded cheese to your bowl before you eat.  IT’S THAT EASY!!!!!  If I am serving a lot of people I will use two bottles of V8 and the larger package of tortellini.

ENJOY!!!!

So I thought I was cool for a short moment in time....

So late fall I bought a new pair of winter boots at TJ Maxx – I liked them and needed some new ones (as I thought we may have more snow this winter).  A few weeks ago we had quite a bit of snow and I finally had a chance to wear them and noticed that they were Sperry.  I have been wanting some Sperry boat shoes and had no idea I had a pair of Sperry’s in the closet!  So I was feeling pretty cool about my new boots until I went shopping at Target and completely wiped out while picking out a cart!  Not sure how many people saw me, but I definitely got a pretty good scrape on my knee.  Guess my Sperry’s aren’t so coolL  One of the boys saw my knee and asked if somebody pushed me downJ  I guess that would have been a better story!