Celebrations

I love celebrating things. It makes daily living more fun to have something to look forward to and enjoy. And we've had plenty of things to celebrate the past few weeks. 

At work we had a Valentine's themed baby shower for my sweet co-workers, Ashley and Brittany. I made a big batch of taco soup, everyone else brought sides, and it was delicious and fun. Was this event after Valentine's Day? Yes. But it was in the month of February, and Valentine's Day generally encourages baby-making, so I felt like the theme was appropriate. Ha.

We like chips, ok?

 Ashley is getting ready to pop! And Brittany actually had her baby several weeks early. She finally got to take him home last week!

I celebrated being able to walk like a normal person and wear normal clothes again (after my burn incident), by going to Biltmore with some Kiewit girls. 

Me, Tess, Mary, and Cassie

We celebrated Caleb's 24th birthday with a dinner out at the Chop House. And this amazing Nutella cheesecake. Nutella is from the Lord.

My crusting skills could use some work. But it doesn't make it any less delicious. 

We celebrated our seven year dating anniversary with a yummy dinner of salmon in a strawberry balsamic sauce, mashed taters, and asparagus. Serious yum.

 And I got these beautiful pink roses. Amazing. My man is good to me.

It was National Pancake Day on Tuesday. I'm telling you friends, it's the little things.

Caleb celebrating getting a receipt with a total ending in a 4 by tipping in pi.

And finally, I celebrated making it through 52 hours of work this week by laying around until 2pm today. In a pair of green surgical scrubs. They are insanely comfortable. And free from my work if you encounter an...accident. But then you can accidentally on purpose keep them forever.

Happy Friday friends! As I looked back through this post I realized that we obviously celebrate life events with food. I'm going to go celebrate hating on some fat with a visit to the elliptical. Right now.

Celebrate something this weekend, ok?

Why marriage is awesome, according to me

I love being married. Not that I'm trying to rub it in the face of all my single friends. Quite the opposite actually. I feel like marriage has been getting a bad rap these days. The other day on KLG and Hoda, I saw a stat that 2/3 of single people never want to get married. Mostly because they see how a lot of marriages are and don't want that. Every day we see a new celeb divorce. (Heidi and Seal?!? I did not see that one coming!) Obviously after being married for a whole two years, I'm an expert. Ok, I'm still a novice. But honestly, marriage can be awesome. So in honor of Valentine's Day, marriage, love, and my sweet gun-loving, long-haired, hilarious man who is turning 24 on Monday, here is my list of why marriage rocks. In no specific order. (Disclaimer: my husband may not completely agree with this list. But he's not the one making it, is he?)

1. You have someone to put your cold feet up against in bed at night. Now your feet are warm.

2. Instead of doing all the hated household chores yourself, you can delegate them. He takes out the trash, I do the laundry. Win win win.

3. When you make bad jokes or quote lines from movies, someone always laughs.

4. You have someone to take you to the ER after burning yourself while cooking. But not before rolling his eyes that you would do something like that.

5. You get someone to celebrate things with. Like birthdays, paying off student loans, getting through a bad day.

6. You have someone to tell you how awesome you are and how you have the best ideas and that you should be getting paid at least twice as much.

7. Also, you have someone to tell you that your idea was dumb and you need to make a different decision because that one was just really bad. Ouch. Reality check. Have you ever watched an after school special. Come on, you know that's not going to work. (Real words, from my man.)

8. You have someone will to try all your new kitchen adventures. Someone with blatant honesty.

9. You have someone to pray for you and with you. Like when I was in the ER screaming about my pain being 10/10. Or before I'm about to serve something with a vegetable hidden in it.

10. Freedom. I fee like there is a freedom in marriage that wasn't in dating. Like I don't have to spend every waking moment with this man, we get to hang out with other people sometimes and that's ok. We get to have our own jobs and do our own thing sometimes. Because at the end of the day, we are going to be in the same house, in the same bed, in the same life. If we get in a fight, we won't break up. We'll work it out. Because we are married.

11. Office/30 Rock/Parks and Rec/Big Bang Theory+bagel bites+glass of wine. Perfect evening.

12. The same last name. It makes me feel like I'm on a team. And that I'm super awesome at baking stuff.

13. Someone to vent about work to. I like that he knows nothing about what I do. So he can just passively nod and say that I was probably right.

14. You always get the window seat on the plane.  Unless, of course, you are the one always giving up the window seat.

15. Black Friday strategy shopping. As in, you go get this, while I get this. Meet me at 0500 in aisle 15. Go time!


16. Traditions. Like pizza on a Friday night and hating Mizzou. It's the little things.

I feel like this list could go on for a long time. But marriage rocks. So far! Enjoy the throwback pics from my dorm room. I love you, my sweet nerd.

Christmas in February

Friday, February 3rd was a joyous day. It was the day Caleb finally received his much anticipated Christmas gift. A gun. More specifically, an AR15. It was magical. Tennessee, we embrace your lifestyle completely.

Please note the other gun and knife on his belt. Necessary to protect the homestead.

We went out on Sunday afternoon to shoot her (as in, the gun... guns are girls, were you aware?). Again, magical.

Why yes, that is an old freezer we are shooting at.

He looks so happy.

Ah, Christmas. Extending into February. What could be better?

Now taking ideas for a name for the gun. The other gun's name is Lucille. Again, guns are women. Your suggestions are appreciated.

Recipe post coming tomorrow. In case you aren't really into guns or something.

Christmas Eve festivities

Do you ever have a day that you think is never going to end? I did. Yesterday. I got floated to the ER to help with overflow and I was wayyyyy out of my element. Around 10:30, I was like wow, this day is never going to end, I'm going to be down here forever, I'll probably get so old that I'll become a patient here and then die down here in the ER because the hospital is so full that they will never find a room for me. How sad. Sometimes I'm a little dramatic. Fortunately, I had the awesome new nurse I'm training to help me. (Thanks Chelsea!) Oh, and the day ended. And I went home and had wine and Chex mix for dinner while watching Boy Meets World with my hubby. Ah, the good life.

Anyway, I wanted to share our Christmas Eve. Because it was wonderfully fun this year. I had to work on Christmas Day, so we celebrated a day early. And it helped that we celebrated with our families a couple weeks ago...I think both Caleb and I had a much easier time with being away from home this year.

We woke up and opened stockings and gifts. Did your mom ever make you take a picture displaying all your gifts? Mine did. I thought the pics were dumb, but now whenever I see them they are hilarious.

I got massively spoiled this year by my honey. Also note my trendy new hairstyle.

Caleb's main gift is missing from this pic. He is getting a gun. (So crazy, I know. Tennessee, what have you done to us?) It is currently being shipped.

We spent the day hanging out, watching Christmas movies, and cooking. Then we went to dinner at Stephanie and Logan's, where they had some ugly Christmas sweaters waiting for us.

Logan was carving the roast and cut his thumb. Right after making a joke about cutting his thumb. Classic.

The food was amazing. I believe the roast is blood free.

Group photo shoot with the Christmas tree.

And we played a few rousing rounds of Settlers of Catan. Probably one of the best ways to spend a Christmas Eve.

One last great photo of Logan with one of his stocking stuffers, straw goggles!

Thanks Slogans, for a super fun Christmas eve! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!


For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
(Isaiah 9:6)

Christmas in Kansas City

I made it through work this week! That means two days off before and after Christmas. Except I get to work Christmas Day. Aren't you jealous? Now I'm just waiting for the sweet hubs to get home and thought I would share some highlights from our Christmas trip to the 913. We celebrated a little early since Kiewit was flying us back to KC for par-tays. I mean...meetings.

I had a really great seat on the first plane and a really crappy seat on the second one.

We did a little Crown Center ice skating and general Christmas merriment with Caleb's family. We also enjoyed some Jack Stack. I love you, bbq. And here's something honest: I love to ice skate. Everyone was ready to go and I was like "but I just warmed up!"

We had "Christmas" with both sides of the family, since we will be hanging out here in Tennessee for the actual holiday. The most fun was watching George. We seriously love that guy. Caleb's dad got some KU tickets and gear for Christmas. We force our love of the Jayhawks on everyone around us! Baby June, guess where you are going to college?

My dad got a grill for Christmas. He was super pumped. I also made him grill our Christmas dinner but he didn't seem to mind!

I love my parent's Christmas tree, it always looks exactly the same as I remember it from when I was a kid.

We also babysat for George and June one night. Caleb was a jungle gym and his keys were the best toy ever.

June cried most of the time. So we just snuggled her and kept her out of bed. Oops. Sorry to mess up the sleep training...

We had SUCH a good time with our families! It's always hard to leave. Hopefully someday soon we'll be back for good!

Last sip of Boulevard Wheat in the airport before catching our flight back...

I got an early Christmas present from the hubs...a macro lens. So expect so close up pics soon...

Giving Thanks

So I am finally getting around to my Thanksgiving post...I almost skipped it, but I love Thanksgiving and honestly can't afford to NOT reflect on what I'm thankful for. So here is my list, with a few pics of recent happenings.

1. I am so thankful for my j.o.b. I have worked a whole freaking lot this year and I am so grateful for the opportunity to do that. I love my coworkers and my patients (ok, most of them). Sometimes I hate the hours, the poop, and the crazy people. But I love getting to help people through some of the toughest times in their lives.

B-12 is my favorite shot to give. Because its pink. Duh.

2. I am so so thankful for all the awesome friends we have. We have so many great friends here in Tennessee and actually spread all over the place. We spent Thanksgiving evening with Logan and Stephanie and our favorite nerd game, Settlers of Catan. Logan cooked a killer turkey. It was amazing.

3. Both of our families pretty much rock. So thankful for supportive, loving families! We met up with Caleb's fam in Nashville for Thanksgiving weekend. We shopped till we dropped, people. It was real.

And we saw my sweet cousin, Nicole while we were there. Tessa, Nic, and I got our shop on. L.o.v.e. this pic.

4. My darling husband. He is my favorite person on this earth. I got him a Thanksgiving card since I had to work all day. (Don't worry, he was fine with shooting guns with his buddies all day.)

5.  The little things that make my days good...coffee, Kathie Lee and Hoda, convos on the way home from work with my momma, laughing at silly tv shows with my hub, going out for lunch with Stephanie,  emails from my Grandma, a good butt kicking at the gym, Michael Buble's Christmas album, Instagram, and a tiny glass of wine at the end of the day.

6. And of course, the amazing fact that God send his Son to die for me. Wonderful, amazing, and the huge truth that gets forgotten in the little happenings of daily life.

That's my list! I would like to share that I am officially a Tennessean as of today. I switched my driver's license over. Caleb is switching his too. Why? So that we can legally buy a gun in the state of Tennessee. Oh Tennessee, what have you done to us?

(Oh, I really heart Instagram. Can you tell?)

Christmas Card photo sesh: my husband is a hater

When we went home in October, my sweet sis in law Audrey took some Christmas card photos for us. Caleb hates having his picture taken and really hates Christmas card pics. But guess what? I don't care. We are doing it. Always. So suck it up, hubs. I always tell him that he can frown for the pics, which is how I get him out there. But I secretly hope he will make a sweet face. He doesn't. Even he can't sabotage these photos though, because Audrey is a genius with a camera.

Friends and family: Caleb will always be grumpy in the Christmas card pic. Some things never change.


I always like feet photos. Because I am a shoe lover.

This face is called: "I don't want to smile but I kind of can't help it."

"Why did I marry a crazy woman?"

"I guess I still like her ok."

"I am so done with this."

"Merry Christmas playas."

So that's it. One of these pictures may be in your mailbox very soon. With a witty remark and a Christmas greeting. Because that's what I'm about.

Check out Audrey's photo goodness at Twiceover Productions. She rocks.

Celebrating Two Years in Charleston, SC (Part 2)

Back to our Charleston trip...which I had to split up into 2 parts since I'm kind of excessive like that...

On Monday (the last day of our little trip), we took a tour of Fort Sumter, which is where the Civil War started. I think this one is the best pic of us on the trip, which is funny since I always want nice pics of us dressed up and it never really works out.

The fort is an island so we took a lovely little ferry ride out. There was a museum and just tons of cool history to be soaked up. Nerdy, I know.

We also toured the Military Museum back in Charleston.

We spent our last evening at High Cotton, which was our favorite restaurant. The food was amazing, the atmosphere was great (live band and gorgeous dining room), and our waiter was hilarious.

Caleb had steak with bourbon bacon sauce and I had the most delicious shrimp and grits. Ever.

Seriously, go to Charleston just for the food. It is insanely good.

Pics of our adorable room at Wild Dunes in Isle of Palms. Very comfy and cute, it had a patio, kitchenette, large bathroom, and washer and dryer!

We got up bright and early to watch the sun rise over the ocean and were not disappointed. Beautiful.

Obviously, I have to share a pic of my sweet husband cooking me breakfast. Future self: remember, he does know how to cook eggs and bacon!

We stopped at a scenic overlook on the way back. Who doesn't love some good scenery? This reminds me how insanely beautiful it is to live in Tennessee. Also, I left my iphone here and a man that was blowing leaves picked it up and ran it over to the car before we drove off. I'm not sure how long this iphone will last...

Caleb has a mustache from my hair blowing in the wind. I think it suits him.

I love that we saw the ocean and the mountains in the same day. We are so blessed! This trip was a blast, go to Charleston for
1. the food
2. the good hair days
3. the shopping
4. the history
5. the ocean
6. the good times with your lover




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