So...It has been almost TWO years since I posted here.  In that two years I got married and ya know, had a baby! That baby is already 4 1/2 months old. Insane.  So now its time I start to catch up. I'll start posting random bits and pieces here and there from the wedding and of course, Miss Jovie Cecilia.  I need a place to post some of the many pictures I take of her (and her outfits, ha).  I don't want to bombard everyone on Facebook on a daily basis.  Here it is, my proclamation to blog again...maybe I should set myself a reminder.

So we have a kitchen gadget/utensil drawer, just like everyone else.  Except not everyone's looks like this, does it?  Wondering what that green thing is?  It cuts the crust off of your sandwiches and makes little trees.  Necessary and thank you Mom, for knowing me enough to know that yes.  I need that.

Look at this mess. Seriously, look.  There's some cool things in there. A guitar shaped cheese "shredder" Get it?

Mike and I did the thing that you do when you're getting married.  Register.  We made the trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and in the very first aisle they had kitchen organization.  Drawers and dividers and shelves, oh my.   We did a little registering for some of those things.  But once I got home I couldn't stop thinking about that one drawer.  That one MESSY drawer.  That drawer where you dig and dig to find the thing you actually need.  Like, the sandwich cutter, perhaps.  So, I did what any sane person does and I made a to-scale cut out of our drawer and the drawer organization options and then measured my tools that were in said drawer.

Angie and I did this in college to plan out our sophmore year dorm room.  That included to-scale cut outs of us as well.  Of course.

I could only wait so long after making my awesome model before I had to go and buy these things.  I just couldn't look at that drawer anymore after imagining what it could look like.  Little metal mesh dividers that were worth every penny.  


Look at that!  Three things are evident here.  1. I like color.  2. I love me some kitchen gadgets.  3. I'm getting old because I'm far too excited about drawer organizers.

A month ago I tried to win a few things in this giveaway contest Dr. Oz was holding, thanks to people I follow on Facebook.  Guess what! I won something and its pretty cool!

It came with free engraving! No commas allowed.

This little bugger is a Clarisonic Opal and the kit retails for $185.00!! What is it?  Well its for using around your eyes to get rid of or diminish fine lines and wrinkles.  Fortunately, I don't have a ton of those...yet.  However, you can use it on puffiness around your eyes.  I've been lusting after a Clarisonic skin cleaning system for months and months now and for registering my Opal, I get a discount, so I just might go for it! Does anyone know of this or have one?  What do you think?

Also, thanks Ang, for the help on what to have it engraved with.  Everyone needs a reminder now and then.

About how I don't plan on ever "growing up."

This is what you do when you find a bag of eyeballs.  You must.

I glanced at some of the objects on my desk at work today to realize I have a stapler with added eye balls, (of course) a mini rubber ducky, and a rubberband ball (that I obviously made) all right next to each other.  Now that I look at that Wite Out, it looks kinda dull doesn't it??? Needs some spicing up.

This is what's going on in our back yard.

Our poor neighbor across the alley has been having plumbing problems, aka everything is backing up into their basement.  Ew.  After quite a bit of trouble they finally got the city to agree to come and dig things up and see what the problem is because they've already had a plumber come in and tell them its not something wrong on their end.  You can just barely see it, but they literally have a port-a-potty in their yard.  Apparently they have to go 24 feet down to get to the pipes.  Our hopes are that there is nothing wrong with our plumbing and that they don't accidentally get too close to the shed or our newly planted apple trees that are on the very border of where they're digging.  Fingers crossed for everyone!  Can't wait to see what it looks like when we get home.

I made Mike some birthday cheesecake brownies.

He was thrilled.

That's an awful lot of flames.

The Packer stock I gave him for a wedding present finally got framed.

We went four wheeling.  It was chilly.  And look! I was along for the ride!

 

Oh Lake Superior, I love you.

I love giving gifts. I love searching until I find the perfect thing for someone. And you know what, I love giving them early because I can't help myself. The excitement of knowing someone just may love the thing you give them is just...too much to bear (is that the right bear?). No one understands this more than Mike. In fact, he is far worse than I when it comes to giving gifts early. He literally cannot help himself.

Our wedding is coming up in September, you know six (6) months away. I gave him his wedding present in January. It was Packer Stock with both of our names on it including my new name. My reasoning for giving it early is that there is an annual share holder meeting coming up before our wedding that I assumed he would want to go to. That was my reasoning anyways.

Cut to last week, Wednesday, Mike tells me I may have a surprise waiting for me on Thursday. Nope it didn't come. This left me another day to try and figure out just what the surprise could be. I for sure thought it was something four wheeler related, with the new four wheeler and all. But I was wrong! Mike walked in the door after work on Friday with two gift bags (that he stole from my closet) and said this is your wedding present. I said, "You can't wait?" He said, "No!!! You saw how upset I was when it didn't show up yesterday!!" And with that, I opened it.

Yee! This was my surprise!! I had zero clue even though I did see him talking with Kari, his cousin and my BFF. Turns out he was consulting with her on what to get. He got a great deal on a used Canon Rebel xsi on ebay. Its in great condition and came with all kinds of extras too. Its the same exact one Kari has so we can consult with each other. Later on Mike asked me "are you glad I didn't wait?" Heck yeah, I am!

Just like so many other people, I have a slight addiction to Pinterest. Its not necessarily the worst thing I've ever been addicted to (donuts). While it may leave me sitting in front of the computer dreaming of the things I will do, sometimes I actually do them! Or, I make Mike do them!

This first one is a wedding project that I'm happy to say is almost completed! As you can see I have some fixing to do on the corners but its nothing a a little hot glue can't fix.

The awesome thing about these letters? I'm going to use them in future babies room. I just love them.

This second project, well I had full intentions of doing it, but I needed a little help from Mike and he just took over. I'm not complaining.

We found this frame at a thrift store for five bucks and it just fit perfectly for what we needed. That crooked string? Don't worry, he fixed it.

Those little square pictures are not easy to find a frame for! It's also costly to try and buy a bunch of them! This was a really inexpensive fix to our problem. Thrift store frame, some eyelet screws and twine from the hardware store and some miniature clothespins from walmart. I call this a success!
This picture...well I saw it a lot on pinterest as well. Maybe not quite this awesome, though. Get on pinterest, and get busy pinning!

With the wedding coming up in September, I have decided I am going to try my hardest to grow the flowers we will use at the tables, and possibly the bouquets. Its just not in the budget to bring in tons of flowers from a flower shop. I'm going crazy right now looking for the perfect kinds! The tricky part is finding some that will (fingers crossed) last until the end of September. I know we definitely had flowers blooming at the end of September last year...will we be this lucky this year? Also, how do I deal with the uncertainty of it all?? What do I do as a backup?

I told our neighbor last night and she's already decided that part of the communal garden will be a cut flower patch. With her help and excitement I at least have a CHANCE that this might work.

Any suggestions as to what to grow? We will definitely be doing a few kinds of sunflowers and zinnias as they are what we had that thrived last year.

Yay, Flowers!

In honor of my Finnish heritage (Did you know I'm 1/4 Finnish?) I'm wearing purple today. Its St. Urho's Day! The story has it that St. Urho drove all the grasshoppers out of Finland to save the grapes. I think I may even have a glass or two of wine tonight to celebrate.

This is Mike's new toy, and this is they way he brought it home:I'm marrying a redneck, aren't I? Who am I kidding....I didn't stand much of a chance. I grew up listening to country music (and attending the festivals) and my dad was a lumberjack. It was inevitable I'd have some tendencies.

So, this is what we did Sunday because there was no way Mike could go a day without riding this new precious toy. What did we do? We went out on the bay and watched ice races. Now, I've never been very fond of walking on water. As you can see, there was literally a lot of water on top of the ice. It was a little unsettling for me but I guess I forgot about it after awhile.

It was a beautiful day to test out the new four wheeler. I am envisioning A LOT of riding it in my near future. I've already been warned we'll be riding to dinner this week, and going on a longer ride on Saturday. Mike's excitement is palpable. He even rode it to work last night and again this morning. In the rain.

To anyone that knows Mike and I, it's no secret that we aren't the most adventurous eaters. I've definitely got Mike beat though on what I will eat. In fact, I'm choosing to believe I'm not THAT picky anymore.

No longer do I have to eat bbq's when its taco night (Yes, this was what happened while i grew up. I didn't like tacos!) and I eat them WITH LETTUCE. Lettuce has been my hardest thing to conquer. I'm still not completely over the hill. I can't tell you how many times I've gagged while trying to eat a salad. Its the texture of lettuce, the way it sticks to the roof of my mouth. Shudder. We've even incorporated eating a small salad with dinner at least three nights a week now as a way of training ourselves to eat better for when (gasp!) we have children and have to show them how good salads are. We don't want our children to have to deal with that stigma. At the very least they won't be able to say "well you won't eat it!"

Its really frustrating and embarrassing when going to someone's house and telling them no thank you to everything they serve up! So here are some things that have been added to our willing to eat food roster:

Fish (Always on mine, but very recently added to Mikes!)
Salads (I must have it with french dressing, but not toooo much of it, oh and baby lettuce)
Spinach (I made a spinach tortellini soup last night and though it looked "scary" I thought it was really good and Mike even ate a bowl after some trepidation)
Cucumbers(always on Mike's)
Bell Peppers (not for Mike)
Tomatoes (I still prefer them cooked, but on salads and tacos and burgers, i can handle them raw)

I'm sure there are more, but for now that seems like a pretty solid list. Oh, growing up.

Some really awful and sad things have happened to my friends and family as of lately that has left me feeling so mournful and worried about them. Today I'm choosing to focus on something happy and tell my happy story not to forget about their hurt but to shine a little light.

On October 24, 2011 I got engaged!


Its about time I tell the story right?

Lets start two days before this. Mike and I had a little shopping to do downtown. As we walked in front of a jewelry store Mike said, "Want to go in?" I obviously said yes. So we went in and just looked at rings. It was unexpected and fun. We narrowed it down to two rings said our thank yous and walked out the door. Let me tell you, the whole time we were in the store two things were running through my mind. 1. Am I really here looking at engagement rings??? Yeee!! 2. Why didn't I at least shower before we went out in public?

The next two days were spent secretly telling my friends that we went to a jewelry store and wondering just how long I would have to wait. Turns out, Mike is just as impatient, if not more, than I am. I came home on Monday the 24th to find Mike home, instead of working his usual overtime. He had some van morrison playing and he was doing the dishes. A little suspicious, yes.

Throughout the day we were texting each other about how excited we were about that nights dinner, spaghetti. We obviously love spaghetti. I walked right in the door, used the restroom, and came out and grabbed the pasta pot out of the cupboard to find this inside of it:


That would be the blue ninja (from the post before this) drawn shakily by a nervous boy on the outside of a jewelry box. He made a very special sneak attack on me. I turned to find mike standing there with a sheepish smile on his face and I quickly opened the box and excitedly yelled, "Do you have something to ask me?" He did. I said yes (surprise!) and we spent the next couple hours drinking wine and calling friends and family. That spaghetti? We never even made it. Our engagement dinner ended up being a tombstone pizza and Riesling wine. So our style.

This past weekend was a long vacation weekend. Mike, myself and my Rachey made a trip down to Madison where we saw the band Primus and checked out Mike's old haunts in the place he used to live. After our very quick trip to Madison we headed back north to Michigan and revisited the resort we went to this summer. Just outside of Wausau we stopped at a truck stop to use the bathrooms. Rachel and I went into our respective room and mike in his. When we came out we found mike at the gumball machines purchasing a toy. This toy.

This is the blue alien ninja. Mike just HAD to have it (now's the time to insert how much I love him, right? I'm talking about Mike).

Blue ninja made the trip to the cabin with us and had a blast doing what ninjas do best...appearing out of nowhere. He ended up almost being eaten from hiding in the bag of popcorn. He hid in Mike's cigar case, in the m&m's and so on. Unfortunately, the weekend came to an end, but blue ninja came home with us.

Since being home he's been on some fantastic missions, like hiding in the salt bowl and my personal favorite coming out of the refrigerator's ice machine as Mike filled his glass.

The point of this story is, its is so. much. fun. The look on the face of the person that finds it is priceless.

Just two weekends ago Mike's baby sister got married. What made it even better (for me) is that one of my best friends (Mike's cousin, Kari) came all the way from Florida to take pictures for the big event. We had a really great time and here are just a few pictures from the wedding.

And this pizza right here, well its just one of the reasons. This is a Frankie's taco pizza and it is beloved in these parts. I never understood it until last weekend. Kari, my bff, if you will, was visiting from Florida for Mike's sisters wedding (more on that later) and it was a mandatory stop while she was here. Yes, that is absolutely Doritos on top of a pizza and they are amazing. I posted this picture to facebook and within maybe 5 minutes there were at least 8 likes/comments. People love. this. pizza. I guess I am now "people." Sigh. Like I needed another "excuse" to eat Doritos.

If you're into Doritos you should totally check out this hilarious post on best week ever's blog. It's called the 50 most delicious doritos flavors: from disgusting to cool ranch.

Back in 2007, when Brett Favre was still the Packers go-to guy, was the last time I made it to Lambeau Field. It was a playoff game against the Seahawks and it ended in blizzard like conditions. It was amazing, with the biggest "snowflakes" (think clumps of snow) I have ever seen. Holly was there and said that she's afraid to go to another game because there's no way another would top that experience. I'd have to say I agree. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to try...

I was just looking back at an article and here's what Brett had to say:

'"I've been hoping for that for 17 years," Favre said. "I was watching the weather all day and it's a shame, I'm like, 'Just give us one of those big snow games.'"

"I wanted to play where you couldn't see the field, and the snowplow comes out. It keeps getting worse and worse," he said.

With Lambeau Field looking like a snow globe, the Packers posted their biggest points total in postseason history.'

The snowplows indeed came out. But first they swept the yardlines as it started to snow, then they moved onto using shovels to clear the yardlines, and finally they had to move onto the plows. It was incredible.

Anyways, the point of this post was that obviously I'm pumped up for the season opener tonight and because of that game and this event that happened before I cannot get excited about football without hearing this sound in my head:

You see, we went to the game with Mike's longtime friend and his wife and we stayed in separate rooms. Mike went down in the morning to get some pre-game donuts at the continental breakfast and he heard someone exuberantly shouting out that sound. Mike came back and told me about it and we giggled (yup, Mike giggled). Just a few minutes later we heard it outside our door when there was a knock. Wouldn't you know it was Eli, Mike's friend, all along. So, from that point on we hum this theme song whenever we are excited about football and will forever remember that game.

This is out our kitchen window. Its quite a regular morning occurrence now as the birds are feasting on our sunflowers. We stared each other in the eyes and just this one time I was victorious as he and all his birdie friends flew away immediately after I took this picture. Normally, I'm the one creeped out by blackbirds. Yes, I find this picture creepy.


This right here is a cat who forgot to put his tongue back in his mouth. I implore you to click on it and make it bigger.


Finally, this is just one of the MANY monarch caterpillars that our garden was a host and home to.