The Crowther's

{ all you need is LOVE } ::

2012-02-14T19:08:00.003-05:00

{ brother and D.C. } ::

2012-02-12T13:25:00.003-05:00

the weekend of january 21st my brother came out for a quick weekend visit before he headed down to North Carolina for a business meeting. we had such a great time! we ate yummy food, went to the Bass Pro Shop (his hunting heaven headquarters), and of course he couldn't stop into town with out a quick trip up to D.C. (a first for him), and let me remind we had just gone the previous weekend, but we were already itching to go back! it was quick trip indeed but well worth it!

let's not forget to mention that there was a slight ice storm the night before. here in Richmond and D.C. - but the roads were clear so we decided to go ahead and go.

i kid you not, it was FREEZING. FREEZING! we were bundled in layers, and we tried to keep walking to a minimum and we got so incredibly lucky and kept getting great parking spots everywhere we went. just thinking about this trip makes me cold!

we went over to the vietnam veterens memorial and found our uncle's name on the wall. it's definitely a humbling experience!

after seeing many of the sights we drove to the Capitol Building, once again we got a great parking spot, but not as close as we had thought. we kinda parked on the wrong side and had to walk all the way around to get in. there my or may not have been a little sibling bickery going on by this point. i was so cold and so mad we had to walk as far as we did that i was just about to walk back to the car when we found the entrance. good thing! we were all grouchy, had to pee and hungry. so not a good combination! let's not forget to mention that brody is a CHAMP traveler and was seriously enjoying everything! love him!

do you ever take pictures of yourself in public bathrooms? well, I did! i was so happy to be INSIDE, 200 layers of clothing peeled off and defrosting i had to capture my happiness. that friends, is my happiness! we walked around the captiol building and ate lunch. once we were all un-thawed, it was time to layer back up and head back outside (boo!). luckily when i mentioned we had a great parking spot, we did. and that spot was right in front of the Smithsoniam National Air and Space muesum. brody was not excited to go back into the cold, but when i told him we were going to Space he perked right up!
we spend the remainder of our time in the museum which was so spectacular and warm! we all loved it and brody thought space was fantastic! and it was nice that when we were done, the car was right outside the building waiting for us.

as we headed out to go home, the sunset was beautiful!

we had such a good time with my brother. brody adores his uncle jeremy. brody talks about his uncle jeremy nonstop and always thinks he's coming over to play! it was really sad to see him go, i may or may not have had a total crying meltdown as he was leaving. i did not want him to go. thanks brother for your visit! we look forward to you coming back!!

{ a D.C. first } ::

2012-02-12T11:41:00.009-05:00

so the lovely bonus of living in Richmond is being so close to Washington, D.C.
we are just a little over an hours drive away, which is pretty much awesome.

we rolled into Richmond the weekend of january 8th so we spent that weekend moving stuff in. but the following weekend, we knew we wanted to go to IKEA which is about an hour away from us, and just happens to be like 15ish minutes outside of D.C. - we kinda figured if we were going to go to IKEA we should go take a quick peek of D.C. - seeing that neither of us had ever been there. so that's just what we did.
we hopped in the car and off we went. we just googled the address for the "Lincoln memorial" online and put the address into our GPS. we knew it was going to be a quick stop, so we didn't do any deep research, knowning we will go back many times! we made it in no time at all. we found a parking spot in the public parking lot over by the Jefferson memorial. and started our walk. it was cold! but we bundled. and when the sun was out you could feel its warmth, so it wasnt too bad.

we walked the big loop of monuments, memorials and the white house, we were super fast and it took us 2 hrs to do. it was fabulous. and we loved every minute of it! my favorite part was the Lincoln memorial, it was as fabulous as i had envisioned it in my mind!

we had a late lunch at the Shake Shack (one of our favorite places to eat in NYC), and it didn't disappoint in D.C. either. then we quickly headed over to Georgetown for some famous Spinkles cupcakes. it was our first time there and i was in cupcake heaven! some say Spinkles is over-rated cupcakes, but say what you want, they were AMAZING! we picked up some cupcakes up and then drove to IKEA, did some fun shopping for household items and then headed back home. we waited to eat our cupcakes until we got home, because we were stuffed from lunch. it was worth the wait! because they were de-lish! it was such a great day trip! and we can't wait to go back, again and again!

but then again pretty much going anywhere with these two is the best!

{ valentine goodie ideas } ::

2012-02-08T16:01:00.007-05:00

now that i've shared some fun crafty ideas, here are some yummy treats to make for yourself, for your lovies, and friends!

1 heart brownies - no link for this one. just make a batch of yummy brownies and use a heart shaped cookie cutter to make these treats a little more special.

2 heart shaped meringues - this recipe suggest to use a passion fruit curd, but you could totally do lime curd, stawberry curd, lemon curd. you get the idea.

3 little chocolates and red velvet whoopie pies

4 yummy dipped oreos

5 valentine pops

6 heart pancakes - what a fun way to start out your valentine's day morning with a fun breakfast! i know i will be doing this for brody and tyson!

7 valentine bark - love making this stuff. i do it for seriously ever holiday. it's so good! i've yet to have a friend not like this stuff. and a lot of friends tell me that they don't even like white chocolate but they love it with this stuff. it's bomb.com! seriously make it!! it's even good with half white and milk chocolate. yum!

and don't forget to go here and here for more ideas!!

happy sweet yummy treat making!!!

{ valentine round-up } ::

2012-02-07T16:48:00.004-05:00

Just one week from today is valentine's day! so to kick things off...it's a week full of love. so i thought i share some fun cute crafty valentine ideas!

1 bonbon filled hearts these would be fun with any sort of little treat

2 crayon hearts i LOVE doing this. it's so much fun. and kids LOVE it!

3 felt wreath this would be fun in any color

4 clothes pin hearts

5 valentine goody bags

6 rosette wreath

7 fortune cookies love this idea, especially if you add a little treat inside them

8 heart treat boxes

and don't forget you can get some cute vday prints right here!

happy week of love.

{ it's time for love } ::

2012-02-01T23:59:00.005-05:00

it's february friends! one of the best months out of the whole year! one of my favorite parts of this month is that it starts out with Love! and as i have been sifting through pins on pinterest i can't help but love all the creative ideas people have to celebrate/decorate for valentines. so with that i took inspiration and ideas from others on pinterest and designed some of my own prints to put in frames to deocorate around our house (pictures to come soon)!

and i thought i would share the love...

set one::
here and here

set two::
here and here

set there::
here and here

print them on your own home computer, or save them as a jpeg and get them printed anywhere!

happy month of love!

{ Quack Attack } ::

2012-02-01T09:59:00.005-05:00

brody and i went and checked out this awesome park downtown last week and it was nice enough to feed the ducks. little did we know, that as soon and we pulled up those little suckers knew we were there to feed them. they were waiting by the car door for us. brody thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. well the honker huge ducks (seriously they were huge and the pictures just make them look like little ducks, so not the case!) we were swarmed by these russian geese and seagulls. it was terrifying! ha! i gave brody a piece of bread and told him to hurry and throw it - but he didn't act fast enough and a "duck" (huge honker) came right up and grabbed it from him and bit his hand. sad. but brody was okay. i finally picked brody up and put him on my shoulders and i pretty much screamed the entire rest of the time throwing the bread to these huge animals as fast as possible! once the bread was gone, they backed off. phew! then i let brody free to chase those fellas into the water. let's just say we won't be feeding those ducks anytime soon or ever again!

{ some of the past three weeks in pictures }

2012-01-31T16:51:00.009-05:00

the last three weeks have flown by and also seem to have gone by super snail slow at the same time. on thursday we will officaly been here for 4 weeks... really? only 4 weeks?

i've tried to keep brody as busy as possible! every so often he still wants to go to campus, swimming and riding the bus. he also wants to go my friend lisa's house and see riker. and he talks about my friend heather's little girl Hadlee and also thinks our friends kelli and neal are coming over (i wish!). there is a little part of me that kinda hopes brody will always be able to remember his little part of life in ohio and his adventures. but i know it will begin to fade little by little and that makes me sad. but i know i've got plenty of pictures and stories to always tell him and remind him of amazing past times.

whether the time has been slow or fast, we've been trying to have lots of fun!
in the past 3 weeks...
we've lounged around some days and tried to get some last few items unpacked.

we've gone to the zoo a few times. it's pretty much pathetic compared to the columbus ohio zoo which is voted #1 in america. so you kinda can't compare. but pretty much the richmond animals live in the ghetto and columbus animals live in beverly hills. just sayin. one rad thing about the richmond zoo, you can feed the giraffes. and they have camels...so take that columbus! ;)nonetheless, brody loves it. so that's all that matters to me. (awe, did you just feel that warm fuzzy? yup, i'm a sap!)

we've built some pretty impressive towers with our legos. and how bout that mater bubble blower. pretty awesome? you betcha. it only cost us $1.67 on clearance at Target. we were sure there was something wrong with it. but nope. bomb.com!

we've painted lots!

we bought a pass to the Children's Museum which is fabulous! it's so fun and there is so much to do! my favortie part is the art area. you can color, paint, water color, do differnt crafts, amazing!

we've gone to the richmond science museum a few times. our passes to the science museum in ohio (cosi) gets us into the richmond science museum for free. so that's nice. the museums' builing use to be an old train station and they converted it into the science museum. it's a lovely building. there is the old train yard in the back of the museum with some old trains. pretty much brody was in heaven!

we've watched movies in the afternoons before nap and of course when watching a movie you need to have a yummy snack! lately, our favorite snack has been popcorn, m&m's and some milk duds. yum!

we've also been blessed with some awesome weather! and awesome weather = us being outside for as much time as possible! we live by a really cool park, that consist of lots of open land. a huge playground, a pond that you can feed the ducks (which we've done, of course!) and you can fish in it, and on top of it there is a large historical farm! the farm is also heaven for brody! everything is open to the public. so we just wonder all around the farm. it's so fun!

so busy, we've been. i am still kinda sad because i miss ohio and friends, can you tell? i feel like my post are boring and slightly whoa is me posts. but i must say, i am really happy to be in richmond. it's a wonderful place and beauitful! i'm not gonna lie, i am usually a champ with change and new things, but i am just still a little sad. perhaps part of living here so far makes me a little weepy is because it's so much like columbus, minus all the forests we are surrounded in. i am certain that soon my post will be so rock'in awesome that all of you are going to want to come and stay with us and take part in all the awesomeness that is richmond! :) right? RIGHT?

Alright...over and out...imaginary high-five!

the end.

before i forget::

2012-01-24T16:22:00.003-05:00

a few last minute pictures of things we did before heading on out to Richmond...

i worked out at my beloved RPAC one last time. hands down BEST. GYM. EVER!

took brody swimming at the RPAC one last time. normally tyson would always take brody and i would workout while they swam. but for the last time i joined them in the swimming fun. brody loved the fins!

one last "family" dinner with kelli and neal

got stuff all packed up and organzied in the dinning room before heading out to the truck

loves!

O-H-I-O

going for a walk and out to lunch on campus

looking at all of our stuff being loaded into the truck

pretty much everything was loaded up in the moving truck besides a few toys. so brody's imgaination sprung to life! here he was with brutus checking out the elephants at the zoo. they were...Quoting brody "playing in the water and eating a snack". seriously he is such an awesome kid! the Rhinos we outside the kitchen window "taking a sleepy sleepy". good times looking out the window!

dinner with our stats peeps! the best group of friends! i love all of them! they've been such awesome friends and classmates with tyson and me! and they all love brody too, of course!

our loaded up truck with all of our stuff...thanks ABF for doing all the work! thanks tyson for getting such an awesome job that paid for our move! woot woot!

one last picture from our mantel! i loved having this mantel! we've taken so many pictures on the good ol' timer setting! our goodbye picture in our empty house.

all packed up and ready to head on out!

goodbye great house! this actually deserves a post of its own. but we've loved our house, squeaky old wood floors, claw foot tub and all! so much love is in those walls from the time we have lived there. so many awesome memories, firsts for us, parties, family dinners with friends, vistors, dance parties with brody in the kitchen, summers in the backyard with bbqs, playing with hose and eating popsicles, taking thousands upon thousands of pictures on the front porch. the list could go one and on. some of the best times of our lives happened here!!

and my boys alseep in the car on the ride down to Richmond. just snoozing away! we were all exhausted! everything just happened so fast and we ended up having to leave a day earlier than planned due to having to meet the realtor at our rental house. so then we really felt rushed. but it has all worked out.

oh ohio...i miss you!

{I have left my heart in so many places} ::

2012-01-20T17:14:00.010-05:00

the new year has definitely started out on a high note and even a few low notes, but most of all we've had quite a bit of change in the fast lane!

back on december 5th tyson was offered a job...and 3 days later he accepted this job offer. and that's when life went into warp speed! accepting a new job was one thing, but starting it on January 9th in a whole other state was another thing! we had to find a new house to live in, tell our landlord we were leaving and hope he would/will be able to find someone to take over our contract that we are still in till June! pack up our ohio house, find a moving truck, say goodbyes and move all in 3.5 weeks time!! big sigh! happy sighs! sad sighs! exciting sighs!

the fall quarter ended december 9th, so we couldn't feel more blessed than to have a job so quick and on top of it, tyson got the job he really wanted!

it was hard at the same time because pretty much everyone was leaving for the holidays, so saying goodbyes happened quickly or not at all. everything happened so fast we still don't feel like we even got a proper goodbye to a place we love so much and hold so dear to our hearts. we have plans to head back and do a few more things and have a proper goodbye!

once we got the job, we drove to this new state to find a home. and it. was. hard! we saw good places and a few not so good. who knew we would be city people? i guess living in Columbus for almost 4 years and literally being down the street from the city and it's perks grew on us. but we just didn't have time to find a place in the city or the money. (remember we are paying to live in TWO places right now!) so we settled for suburbia! but a good settled! there were moments of fear, moments of "what if" and of course tears (on my end). but all in all it worked out. we found a fabulous place and felt good about it! we headed home to Columbus to celebrate christmas and then right after christmas...we hustled to get a moving truck and our house packed up.

Right when we found out we were moving, we started talking to brody about it everyday! every morning when i'd go in to get him, we would talk about what was going to happen. we were moving, to a nice city, to a new home. a big moving truck would be coming to take all of our stuff so we would have all of our things with us in our new place. we would have new parks, new museums, make new friends. and most importantly all three of us would be together! i would talk to him about it in the car, before nap, at dinner time. to really get into his little mind that things were changing. we tried to make it exciting and happy.

once room after room started getting packed the change was amongst us. whether or not we were ready, it was happening! we ordered an ABF truck that got dropped off at our house January 2nd. we got everything loaded up, besides brodys room. that was the last room to be packed. his room got packed up on the 3rd and put in the truck. our truck got picked up on the 4th and got dropped off to us on the 7th.

we stayed in our Columbus house till the morning of the 5th. the morning of the 5th, we said goodbye to all things familiar. goodbye to our house that we've loved dearly. goodbye to our little city, the ohio state university campus and everything else in between! what an awesome time we've had in ohio!!

it's all been really sad, but really great at the same time.

everything went so smoothly it was almost to good to be true. like ya know, everythings gone so well, something bad is bound to happen? but really everything has been wonderful. we've got pretty much everything all unpacked and in it's place. we've tried to make most everything seem as familiar to brody as possible. he has done AMAZING with all this change that has happended so fast. he definitely knows we are somewhere different. but i've tried to keep him very busy and show him all the new things that i'm sure will come to be some of our favorite things. he is my happiness! i on the other hand miss ohio so much, more than i imagined. as hard as i am trying to be happy, i can't find but help that my heart is in a whole other place and i am just waiting for it to catch up to me. and i know it will, it will just take time. everything just went so incredibly fast, and i'm just starting to feel like things are slowing down. and i know we've only been here 2 weeks. but it seems like we've been here so much longer! but we really do like it here! we've done some pretty exciting things in a short amount of time that we've been here so far and i know it will only get better.

tyson LOVES his new job. LOVES. which is awe.some! he comes home saying "i got to do statistics today, yay!" yay indeed for my statistician!! i am happy that he gets to go out and do what he really enjoys. it only makes life sweeter!

our "student life" has officially ended. and it's werid, so so werid! we've been quite blessed and comfortable in our "student life". but the next chapter of life beings! we're big kids now!! we are excited to live in a new city and we couldn't be more thrilled for all the new adventures we know are ahead of us.

we are excited to say our new home is in Richmond Virginia!

{two thousand and eleven} ::

2012-01-10T22:04:00.009-05:00

We had a great 2011...here is a little review of our awesome year...

January...one word :: Snow

February... valentines day and my birthday celebrating the big 3-0 was pretty awesome!

March...we checked out Blooms and Butterflies and brody makes our world go around!

April...we flew kites and celebrated Easter

May...we saw elephants and brody and tyson went to the circus, we had a super hero birthday party and brody turned 2!

June...we picked tons of yummy strawberries and went to the park of roses to of course, enjoy the roses!

July...we celebrated the 4th of July and Tyson's birthday. we went to Zoombezi bay a tons, and we also hit up a columbus clippers baseball game and played a little corn hole.

August...we went to the Ohio State Fair, brody got a hair cut and we celebrated 7 fabulous years of marriage you can watch our wedding video here!

September... we went met a Farmer at 'Farm Days' at COSI, Brody and Tyson rode the Bus almost every single day, grandma and papa nicholes came to visit, and brody and tyson went to the first Ohio State Football game of the Season and melted in the 100 degree weather!!

October...we went apple picking, enjoyed all the fall colors, grandma and grandpa crowther came to visit, had a halloween party, dressed up as woody, buzz and jesse for halloween and uncle jeremy came to visit.

November... i ran my 2nd half marathon, we played with friends, went to football games, worked out with Richard Simmons and Gave thanks!

December... kicked off the month with ugly sweater party, decorated gingerbread houses, went to a hockey game, and had a wodnerful christmas!

2011 was such a great year! I am thankful for all the wonderful adventures we had, and we are so excited to see what 2012 has to offer us!

{bottom line}::

2011-12-31T23:48:00.004-05:00

So usually when everyone is asleep at night, i have some time just for me and usually when i finally have that me time, even if it's just for a little bit, I usually spend my time thinking about my family, daydreaming about my family and loving my family. The bottom line is, I really love these people...they were meant to be with me and I was meant to be with them. Life is funny like that, you usually end up right where you are supposed to be. I really like that. i believe brody was plucked right out of heaven just for us...he is perfect. even with hard days, tired days and all the exceptional awesome days. its so worth it.

What makes a good life? I believe a happy family does.

{Christmas Glimpse} ::

2011-12-29T22:30:00.013-05:00

Our christmas weekend started off by going to zoo lights and we also drove through the neigborhood to check out christmas lights. christmas eve we followed through on a nicholes (my family) christmas eve tradition of eating at the Olive Garden. we came home and watched the Polar Express (aka the Honker Train, as brody likes to call it). we put brody to bed and then made big mugs of hot chocolate and watched a Christmas Carol (another christmas eve tradition).

Christmas this year was pure magic. Brody was so delightful and was such a joy to watch! He loved every minute, as did we! When he woke up, he asked to go down stairs to see if Santa had come. His very first concern was to see if Santa and the Reindeer had eaten the treats we left them! indeed they did. and once Brody saw that the treats were eaten, he ran to the tree to see all his gifts!

we were all quite spoiled this year and feel so blessed and grateful! Brody reveled in all his christmas goodness! he "ohhh" and "aweeed" gift after gift. even when he opended a box of clothes he shriked with pure excited and said "YAY JEANS". funny boy that brody!

after presents we ate a yummy christmas morning breakfast and headed off to Church. After a beautiful Christmas church service, we came back home, changed into our jammies, and feasted on yummy food and treats for the rest of the day.

What a sweet Christmas it was. I never want to see brody ever grow up!

2011-12-25T00:07:00.002-05:00

{all is merry and bright} ::

2011-12-24T17:35:00.005-05:00

the month of december has been jammed packed with lots of fun stuff!

we kicked the month of December off by going to Brody's last gymnastics class of the season. we will miss gymnastics! he had such a great time!

our ward (church) had our annual Ugly Sweater Christmas party. a good time was had and brody did a good job with Santa. he wouldn't sit on his lap but at least he would stand next to him and of course getting candy helped too.

we've had some COSI (our science museum) fun and we also did our family tradition of St. Nick an old european tradition that takes place on december 5th. back in the day, children would write their letters to santa and leave their letter in a shoe outside there door, and Saint Nicholas would come around and collect the letters and leave children a treat. it's something my family has always done, you can read about it here.

i made "graham cracker" ginger bread houses, super easy! and we had our friends the Olsen's come over to decorate these yummy little houses. brody loved it! he got his very own house to decorate. pretty sure he enjoyed eating the candy more than actually decorating. i don't blame him, we had some pretty tasty treats!

we had a goodbye lunch with our fabulous friends the Humberts before they left Ohio for christmas break. brody and jaydn are so cute!

we went to an Ohio State Hockey game. for students and spouses with Buck I.D.'s you get in for free. our neighbors let us borrow one of there I.D.'s for brody and we had a really fun night! brody loved it, as always! he sat and watched the entire game! and of course we saw Brutus! we LOVE brutus! and pretty sure our family photo-op is priceless. just look at brody's face, isn't he thrilled we are taking a picture.

my wonderful friend Elizabeth invited brody and i over for a play date where we decorated christmas cookies and had lunch. she is amazing and had the most wonderful spread of goodies for decorating and for lunch! love her! she is also brilliant and she made frosting that the kids could paint on there cookies and had paint brushes for everyone to use. seriously a great idea!

i got tyson and brody tickets to a Ohio State Basketball game for Christmas. they had a great time! and had amazing seats! once again brody sat and watched the entire thing all while enjoying pop, popcorn and the game! he cracks me up. he won't sit still at the library for story time but he will sit for 2.5 hours at a sporting event. he's too funny!

we got our tree up and we've had lots of fun going to the store and looking at all the wonderful christmas stuff. i bribed brody at Target to put on the santa hat. i told him if he smiled, i'd let him touch the christmas lights on display. ha! it was win win for both of us. :)

it's been a great month so far... it's definitly been merry and bright!

{November Randmoness} ::

2011-12-23T23:35:00.010-05:00

I take a lot of pictures...usually the pictures just capture the randomness of our day. There is a lot that gets left "unposted". Nothing exciting, nothing interesting, just us being us. Here is some randomness from November. We love that we get to spend so much time together as a family and have such fun adventures together!

let's not forget how we kicked off the month...i ran a half marathon with my beautiful friends! also notable tyson took brody to the osu vs. indiana football game (i had the camera, so they couldn't document there fun, but they had a blast together and our buckeyes won, woot woot!)

friday night outings...riding the bus and going out for smoothies & donuts!

every friday morning we had gymnastics aka "tiny tumblers". brody loved his gymnastics class!

painting! brody is my little Picasso! and oh how that makes me proud! i too am an artist and it makes me happy to see him exploring and usuing his own creativity! we paint a lot, and i love it!

in the words of Pablo Picasso ... All Children are Artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

(Brody's two paintings "a cow" and "space")

one thursday night Ohio States Student Activities was...

Oh that's right! Sweat'in to the Oldies! i worked out with Richard Simmons! not only did i work out with him, but i worked out with him on stage!! when he first got on stage he started picking people out of the crowd and i was choosen! it was fabulous and he is SO NICE! I want to workout with him everyday! it was a blast!!! at the end of our workout he had everyone sit down and he gave us a pep talk, he told us about his life and growing up and how he got to where he is today. he also encouraged everyone to take care of their bodies. to make goals in life and to follow on them. to be nice to everyone. he really emphasized on how God made only one YOU. and how we need to have confidence in ourselves and to remember that God loves us and that he thinks we are special. he told everyone to be healthly and lead healthy lives and be examples to all those around us. seriously he was amazing! i loved every minute of it!

my friend Caroline's little boy Theo turned 2 and i helped make cupcakes for his birthday party that was a monkey theme! i think the cupcakes turned out super cute and they were very tasty! Theo's party was at an indoor blow up play place. Brody wasnt too sure of it at first but after about 45 minutes of me forcing him to try everything out he LOVED it and was very upset we had to leave. it was a great party and we had so much fun!!

our fabulous friends Kelli and Neal watched Brody while Tyson and I went to our last Ohio State football game of the season. we played Penn State and ugh we lost. whatev. but we had a great time! before the game we walked down and enjoyed the

"pre-game" festivites. pretty sure i can't get enough of brody in his bear suit with his ohio state gear on. he is just so yummy and fluffy! so cute! you seriously would not believe how many people ask to have a picture with him! after watching the skull session (pep rally), we walked brody home and then walked back down for the game.

one of our random afternoons at the zoo. we got lucky and had some pretty nice days in november, so we took full advantage and would go to the zoo. i love this picture of tyson and brody, we were watching the Lions.

we kicked off thanksgiving week with going to Ohio States Michigan Week Pep Rally. we really only went for two reasons 1. see the marching band and 2. see Brutus. both were accomplished! and we had a lot of fun eating yummy free food, winning prizes and showing off our ohio state pride.

along with Thanksgiving week, i hurried and threw together a little "thanksgiving" play date with a couple of friends. i made everyone a "turkey drum stick" with some little treats inside. all the kiddos got a yummy turkey apple. and lunch consisted of PB&J pumpkin shaped sandwhich, fruit and cheese cubes. the mom's had a yummy lunch of homemade chicken noodle soup, salad and garlic bread. so good! it was a success! i also made little indian hats for the kids. i think that was my favorite part!

Thanksgiving also consisted of our "Thankful Tree". it was so festive and we loved looking at all the things were are grateful for. Brody loved this activity and actually really got involved when listing off things we are grateful for. for a 2 year old we very simply tried to explain to him what it meant to be grateful and the words that came out of his mouth were... "kelli and neal", "brutus", "papa (grandpa nicholes)", "uncle jeremy", "chocolate milk". just to name a few. we really do have so much to be grateful for and i love having a reminder of how good we really have it!

we had thanksgiving dinner with our good friends the Humberts. they were fantastic company and we enjoyed a delish thanskgiving lunch! we later ate leftovers at there house and then had dessert. we were SO STUFFED!!

I love these two! How great are they? the best things ever! one thing is for sure, i am so grateful for brody and for all the happiness that he brings me! i can't imagine not being a mom. Tyson and I both agree that Parenthood really is the best thing ever, even with hard & exhausting times :) It's all so worth it!! and of course tyson is amazing! he sure does love us and we love him! i am very lucky!

so there is some of our november randomness! awe, november was good, really really good.

{Yes, another visitor and Ohio State vs. Wisconsin}::

2011-12-23T00:43:00.006-05:00

we've been lucky to have so much family come to visit...and next it was my brother jeremy's turn to come have some fun! we were so happy he came to visit us and we had the best time!!

of course right after picking him up from the airport we headed straight to campus to show him the football stadium. ONLY because they close the gates to the public two days before home 'game days' and i wanted him to see what the stadium looked like empty and then what it would look like on the night of the football game. so of course we had our photo-op momments and then headed down to German Village for dinner where we are at Schdmits Sausage house. It was delish, jeremy loved it and we even enjoyed the live poka band, brody especially loved the music! it was pretty much rad!

we took a day and drove out the Amish to take him to Heini's cheese factory and the Amish farm. we did Heini's but the Amish farm was closed for the season (lame!)...so we continued on to do what we do best...eat! and eat we did! we had a yummy lunch at the Durdutchman and walked around the Amish grocrey store, which by the way is pretty amazing! and on top of all the good food, we got to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and colors!

we also took a few minutes downtown to hit up the replica of Columbus's Santa Maria...let's ohhhh and awwwweee shall we??

we ate breakfast at the North Star Cafe and Jeremy also joined us at our ward (church) Halloween party. He's the Army man (obviously!)

we of course had to get some pictures with Brutus...

and this little guy ADORES his Uncle Jeremy. and that's exactly what he calls him "Uncle Jeremy". Brody asks almost every other day for his "uncle jeremy". on as ide note: just the other day at the grocrey store brody's in the cart and all the sudden out of no where screams "uncle jeremy!!!!!!", "uncle jeremy come play!!!!!".

other mentionables that i didnt take pictures of (shocking i know), we also hit up COSI (our science museum), the ZOO, a few more tasty places to eat, a tour of campus, jeremy went and watch tyson teach. pretty sure we gave him the full Ohio State experience!

but most importantly...the best part of Jeremy's trip...was going to the OSU vs. Wisconsin game! This game was a heart attack waiting to happen! it was AWE-SOME!

We started the evening off by walking down to campus and hit'in up the SKULL session, we love our marching band...

after the SKULL session, jeremy and i headed out for some dinner. and brody and tyson headed home. it was brother sister bonding time at it's finest my friends. awe, did you just feel that big warm fuzzy! ;)

Like I said, this game was a heart attack waiting to happen...one minute we were ahead the next minute wisconsin ahead and then it was tied...it was crazyyyy! but in the end we WON! and everyone rushed the field...as did we! SO. MUCH. FUN. We cheered till we had no voices left! there is nothing better than a happy adrenaline rush! not only do we love our buckeyes...but jeremy does too!

Thank you for coming Brother! I love you so much and I am so happy you were able to come out and spend some much time with us! it was seriously so much fun! i wish i could press rewind and experience it all over again! in the words of brody "COME BACK...COME BACK"! youre the best and we love you!!and GO BUCKEYES!!!

THE END.

october highlights ::

2011-12-23T00:08:00.007-05:00

welp, before i move forward and leave the month of october for good (about time, i know!) ...here are a few other highlights to a really great month...

we enjoyed really nice weather pretty much the entire month. it was lovely! we continued throughout the month with our weekly lunch dates with tyson. one of mine and brody's favorite things to do!

we of course enjoyed the changing colors that we just couldn't get enough of...

we went to Boo at the Zoo and brody got to trick or treat all around the zoo and scored some yummy treats, all while enjoying the animals!

we went to our Ward (Church) Halloween Party...
Woody, Buzz and Jesse...

Brody LOVED wearing his Buzz costume! he would do just about everything in it! LOVE this kid!!

on the day of Halloween my friend Caroline and I took our boys to the Pumpkin Patch...

and of course halloween night we had a blast! Brody did awesome trick or treating! they say "Happy Halloween" here instead of "trick or treat". So he'd say his Happys and end with his thank yous. it was quite cute! he sure was the cutest Buzz Lightyear!

we indeed had a wonderful month and a happy halloween!

{dead people and spooky fun}::

2011-12-22T23:28:00.009-05:00

you read that right...dead people and spooky fun!

i couldn't wait for October 1st to come around so that i could put out our Grave Yard! I think it's perfect and adds just the perfect touch to the halloween spirit!

just like last year...we had our Annual Donut Halloween party!

here is the invite i designed and sent out, this years theme was Bats!

this years donuts turned out AWESOME! mmmmmmm....they were so good, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! i glazed the donuts in a maple glaze that tasted oh so good!

there were NONE left by the end of the party!

the table set-up...

last year we had a pinata...and this year we decided to let everyone fill up there own bag of candy! that was a huge hit! and even though the picture of the candy is blurry, it's the only one i took...so you get the idea...

tyson sat on the pouch in his Frankenstien costume and scared the jeebbers out of all our friends!

and of course we had our photo booth set up! this is by far my most favorite part and i am pretty sure everyone else has a good time too!

we had such a great time! and we are so glad for friends that like to come and party with us! i'm glad it's an annual thing! i'm already thinking up ideas for next year!

{crowthers come to town} ::

2011-12-22T23:08:00.005-05:00

Tyson parents came for a visit a for a weekend in October and we had such a wonderful time!

we took them to campus and gave them a full tour! we hit up the library, the RPAC, Mirror Lake, Brutus and the Stadium, were just some of the highlights. Tyson's parents even went and watched Tyson teach his statistics class. good times!

and of course we ate good food and enjoyed yummy Jeni's ice cream! they loved it!

we took a trip out to the Amish country. we went to Heini's cheese factory and ate way too much cheese and then went to Yoder's amish farm. Brody loved all the kittens and animals at the farm!

we also went to the topiary gardens - which we love! it's always so beaultful! we had a good time walking around and feeding the ducks.

i love the 3 generation pictures! we get one with tyson, brody and his dad everytime we see them. it was such a fun weekend! it went much to fast - but we are so happy that mom and dad crow came to visit! thanks for coming! We love you!!

Ohio State vs. Michigan State::

2011-12-12T23:46:00.003-05:00

we had season football tickets - so we decided to take turns taking brody to the football games. tyson took brody to this game and it was my turn! brody LOVES football. and even more LOVES watching football! he will sit and watch an entire game. we find it quite amazing! i loved being able to take him! good thing i love football just as much as him! and we sure do love our buckeyes!!

before the game we went to the 'skull session'. it's pretty much a big pep rally where the marching band plays the entire half time show along with all the school songs. the football teams comes out and we get to cheer and get into the buckeye spirit! we love the marching band! brody is obsessed!

outside of the stadium before (every) home game, there are always tons of vendors with giveaways, food, and games! brody loves to try and kick a field goal! pretty darn sure, he is the cutest buckeye fan i know!

outside there is also an area where the cheerleaders do stunts and cheers before the game! and of course Brutus (our school mascot) is always out! Brody LOVESSSSSS Brutus!

brody and i made it into the stadium with plenty of time to kill. but it gave us time to look all around, watch the football team warm up and watch the marching band come out! when brody saw Brutus out on the field before the game started, he jumped out of my arms to start to run down to see him. good thing i am quick and caught my little bear and informed him, only Brutus got to be on the field and that we just get to wave and say hi from our seats! pretty sure he yelled 'Brutus i love you' like 20 times. haha!

don't mind that brody didn't want to miss a minute of the game!! seriously! i had to hold him the entire time - because everyone was standing! which is fine, that's what you do at a game! but i put him down on the bench one time to give him a drink of water and he was so mad at me for blocking his view of the game! needless to say i didnt do that again! and we just watched the game! :)

at half time we were losing (boo!) and in the end we lost the game (boo!)....but brody was even more upset at me for leaving the game! we left at half time, it was cold and freezing and ugh the losing was so bad! so we left and went and found tyson who was outside the stadium watching the game on the big screen. as mad as brody was at me for making him leave the game, he was thrilled to see his daddy! i do believe he was kinda grumpy too because he was tired. maybe just a little tired.........

oh my dear brody bear! i love you so! i love that we got to spend some time together just you and i, doing something we both love! and even though it would of been fun to have your daddy with us in the game. we still had a great time! thank you for cheering with me the entire time. and yelling 'go buckeyes'! thank you for being the cutest thing ever - and putting up with people asking if they can take a picture with YOU! you are amazing! i am sorry i blocked your view for all of 10.5 seconds to give you a drink of water and for making you leave at half time. but it was freezing and we were losing! i love that you love our buckeyes!! and i love you!!!

California Dream'in ::

2011-12-12T22:49:00.003-05:00

sometimes, i joke to tyson about how if we had of gone to UC Santa Barbra for graduate school we could be playing in the sand all the time! but then i think about how much i love ohio and wouldn't trade a single day for one day at the ocean.

however, there are days in ohio where it's oh so hot and humid and sunny and sometimes i wish we weren't land locked and that the ocean was close. but even with no ocean, we still have sand...and on days that are hot and sunny and we can just go to the park and play in the sand!

...and play in the sand we did! back in October on an 80 degree afternoon. Brody was in sand heaven! scooping, building, pouring, digging all the sand till his hearts content! they call days like this 'indinan summer'. and even though being in california would be dreamy at times...i still wouldn't trade days like this for anything!

pumpkin patch ::

2011-12-12T22:19:00.003-05:00

our attempt at going to the pumpkin patch didn't quite go as planned this year...they wouldn't take us to the pumpkin patch because we were the only ones at the patch (lame)....so we just played around! we did the maze, played in the kiddie area for a very long time, saw the animals and overall had an excellent time and on top of it....it was 75 degrees, clear blue skys and wonderfully sunny!

oh how i love this little boy of mine. and boy howdey he so doesn't want to hold still for the camera these days. ha! can you tell? it only takes like 50 shots to get one. but it definitely makes for some pretty funny memories. and let's be honest, when you get a little boy on a farm with animals, slides, dirt, tractors....you wouldn't want to be stopped for a picture either. so i have to give him credit for putting up with me!

we played in the corn box...just like a sand box...but with corn kernals. it's pretty much genius if you ask me.

petting the sheep. brody kept saying 'hi sheep hi' and blowing him kisses. i think the sheep was feel'in the love. and once again...oh the hay bail...well you can tell how he felt about it.

tyson seriously thought he was so funny for this pose. i am sure he will love me for posting it.

even though we didn't get to ride the tractor out to the pumpkin patch - it was still eventful and we really did have a great time!

it's a fall thing::

2011-12-12T15:37:00.006-05:00

One thing that makes Ohio amazing is the Fall. It's without a doubt my most favorite season! just like that time i talked about it here. Watching summer come to an end and Fall slowly creeps in and changes everything. it's as if mother nature takes her magic wand and very slowly transform nature around us! it.is.beautiful! this year i especially took note of how amazing and beautiful our Fall was! we had some really warm days which is always a bonus when you know the doom of freezing cold weather is just around the corner! we always took full advantage of every warm day spending all our time outside!

dear ohio fall, i love you.

September :: Visitors

2011-12-12T15:03:00.004-05:00

Back in September....yes September! my wonderful parents came to visit us! we had THE BEST TIME! and of course i wanted to get it documented. better late than never!

our first stop when they came was Campus and we hit up the Horseshoe (aka the football stadium).

brody and papa climbed way up to have a good view of everything!

We showed my parents one of brody's favorite friday night things to do! the High School football games! we have a high school just a block away from our house. And brody lovesssss to sit and watch the entire game!

and of course we hit up Jeni's ice cream! Yumm! Papa and grandma even bought brody his own ice cream cone! so fun!

we drove up to Sandusky Ohio and went to the #1 Amusement park in the Nation for a little roller coaster riding! We took turns and my parents would watch brody while we went on a ride and then my parents would go on a ride. Brody LOVED all the kid rides!

we hit up the Amish country - we went to Yoder's Amish Farm, ate at the Durdutchman and went to Heini's Cheese Factory! we also had a lovely adventure driving home and the main road was shut down and we had to detour and got lost! but no worries we finally found our way to the highway! good times!

we took them downtown to the Utopiary Gardens which are amazing and beauitful! and also to the replica of Columbus's Santa Maria.

and of course we went to the Zoo, which they loved!

of course besides seeing all the sites - we ate lots of yummy food! brody got loads of loves and attention from grandma and papa and we just loved having them be here with us!

Thanks for such a great week Grandma and Papa! We love you!!!

These Buckeyes got the RUNS::

2011-11-11T19:22:00.008-05:00

back on the weekend of november 4th....my beautiful friends (by the way, i only have beauitful friends!) and i happily jumped in the car and drove to Indianapolis to run a HALF MARATHON. let me first tell you that my friends are AMAZING and pretty much any other awesome word you can think of! we all trained for 12 weeks and did weekend long runs together. our friend Ellen had never - NEVER even ran ONE mile in her life, and 12 weeks later she RAN (no walking) RAN 13.1 miles. once again AMAZING!

of course i documented our entire weekend in photos::

(Ellen, Me and Heather)

just before we left for our drive to Indy.

We stayed right downtown so that it would be easy to get to the start line the day of the race. we stayed in a super nice suite - where we each had our own bed. it was sweeeet! and this was our view from our hotel window - Lucas Oil Stadium where the Indianapolis Colts play football.

after we checked into our hotel, we headed over to the convention center where we had to go pick up our race packets that would have our timing chips, race shirt and bib numbers. we were excited, if you couldn't tell!

once we were good to go for our race it was time to go find dinner! we knew there were typical choices of places to enjoy a nice dinner. but we decided to be adventurous (not always the best idea the night before a race) and try something "local". we googled lots of places to eat and found an Italian resturant that had way good reviews, 5 stars, been voted Indys best italian food for like 10+ years, totally authentic, you get the idea. sounded great! well, pretty sure the first sign of "dont eat here" should of been the gun shots in the windows. (for reals) but we just laughed about it. the bread and salad were divine! the main dishes were blak! and we paid a high pretty penny for some not good food. sob! we knew we had to make up for our "authentic" italian food by hitting up... where else?

the Melting Pot of course! i mean let's be honest, who doesn't want to huck themselves full of chocolate and berries, and cake, brownies and marshamallows, 10 hours before a big event? it sure didn't stop us and we had a BLAST! Oh and it was so yummy!

after rolling out to the car and getting back to our hotel we got all of our stuff ready for the morning and of course had to have a dance party before bed! it's. a. must! we hit the hay and we were welcomed by a 6am wake up call that we did not request. boo! even though we were planning on getting up at 6:30, that 30 extra minutes would have been lovely. but at the same time because we were very unhappy about that wake up call we got $45 dollars taken off our bill. halla! it had to be mentioned! (thank you ellen). :)

my bib # - i save my bibs from all my races. this one gotta added to the bunch!

(These Buckeyes Got The RUNS)

Ellen is fabulous and made us super cute shirts for race day! we knew we wanted to stay linked to our Ohio State roots and represent - so we can up this saying "These Buckeyes Got The RUNS", and Ellen brough it to life!

and of course we had to have our names on our shirts too!

after getting all ready we headed over to the start line, and it was freezing cold! a lovely 30 degrees and wind!! but we were so pumped it didn't matter! after waiting in line for the porta potties and streching and getting in our spot we were ready for the count down. and we were OFF.....

thanks to Heather for carrying my camera in her ultra hip runners fanny pack (the coolest thing ever, seriously) of course we took pictures! and this may be the last time i ever get to blog, because it just so happens that Heather is going to kill me for posting her uber happy running face. (heather, your reading this and you are beautiful and remember you love me) but to make up for it - i posted me and my giantness between my two tiny cute little running friends.

it's kinda crazy to me the adrenaline rush you get from a race! it is not stop goodness!!
the first few miles for me felt sooooo cold and the wind was killing me! i hate the cold! but once we got to mile 3 it seriously felt like every mile went by so fast! there were so many awesome people cheering us on ALL ALONG the race course. we ran all through downtown Indianapolis and way cute, beauitful neighborhoods. but around/before mile 10 we had to go to the bathroom - i have never been in a race where there were seriously NO porta potties anywhere! we kept going and going and no such luck, we finally found some bushes in a parking lot. lovely. but we didnt care! and after that things were much better!!

and 13.1 miles later...

we did it!!! awe the pure bliss of victory! there is nothing better than finishing a goal! i felt the same way after my first half. so accomplished! and so proud that we ran the entire thing!

our friend Addie had found us at the start line among 13,000 runners! and ran with us up until our little "potty break". thanks to her for taking our finish line picture!

besides receiving a medal at the end of the race - the food is always happiness! and of course i had to document my happiness with food!

after noshing down on yummy food in the freezing cold, we made it back to our hotel were we lounged in our warm hotel room and took nice long hot showers!! we did it! and it was fabulous! i never thought i would like running with others. i'm kinda a lone runner. but i wouldn't have choosen to run this race any other way or with anyone else! (i actually wouldn't of even done the race, if they hadn't). i think they amazing and strong! and i love them more than they know!

and now we can check off that we did Indianapolis Half Marathon! we definitely ran it out of Indy! because after all...These Buckeyes got the RUNS!!

Mission Log :: I have landed on a strange planet

2011-11-03T17:32:00.002-04:00

To Infinity and Beyond!!

i find that there is nothing more magical than making fun memories as a family! i have millions of special thoughts and memories i hold in my heart - it is so fun to look at a picture and see the changes just 2 years has brought! i thought it would be fun to look back at past halloweens...

my little bear at 17 months old

my little monkey at 5 month old

{Happy Halloween}

2011-10-31T17:14:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!

Love,
Woody
Buzz Lightyear
and Jessie

Back to School :: Fall Quarter 2011

2011-10-11T00:23:00.011-04:00

it's that time again...or should i say it was time again for back to school! the fall quarter started a little over two weeks ago!

but nonetheless, i love this time of year! even though tyson is always a student year round, he does get a nice little break before the fall quarter starts. so after a few weeks off of school and the start of the fall quarter, it always seems to bring the feeling of new excitement for the start of a new year/quarter!
i love going to the store and seeing all the school supplies and seeing new and returning college students shopping at Target with there parents! it makes me so nostalgic! i remember every new fall semester my parents were always with me, helping me move into my apartment, taking me shopping for all my college student needs. awe, those were the days! :)

my cute boys! terrible picture quality - but i liked it too much! it's back to school time!

Here's to another quarter of school! this quarter brings along new adventures as always!

we celebrated the first day of school with a 'back to school dinner'. a tradition we do every year! this year we ate at noodles and company (fancy, right?) and with a new year, comes a new family theme. this year our *family theme is...

we do believe that through FAITH our FUTURE is BRIGHT! no matter what!! i can't express how lucky we feel to have such loving family and friends who continually support us, pray for us, believe in us, and love us! with all this, combined with our strength as a family, we know that anything is possible!

happy back to school time! tyson is already loving his quarter and is making sure he makes it one of his best quarters!

*(i did do the design to our family theme poster - if you want a copy it's an 8x10 print. just click here for the print.)

Apple Picking :: Round Two

2011-10-10T16:42:00.007-04:00

so the apples we picked the first time around were just so yummy that we ate them all up! so when friends of ours from church were going to go pick apples, brody and i were totally all about tagging along and getting us some more apples!

isn't the apple orchard so beautiful?

yummy apples!

brody with his friend theo. boys in overalls = adorable! very fitting for apples picking!

brody and his friends

our apple picking friends!

brody and i. i love him so! this time around brody was all about just running around with his little buddies and eating the apples. we had a really good time. i am so happy we get to enjoy such great adventures together.

Recipe :: Peanut Butter Oreo Ice Cream Pie

2011-10-06T16:09:00.004-04:00

a little over a month ago, i made this (yum)! but when i saw this recipe that included all the things we love. i knew i had to try it! we love oreos. we love peanut butter. we love chocolate. and we love ice cream. and if you want to die and go to heaven - then you need to make this ice cream pie! this pie is amazing! and on top of that - it's so easy! E-A-S-Y!

if you want to see step by step photos on 'how to' make this delish dessert go here.

so before you start trying to lick your computer screen, go hit up the store come home and make this pie - and if you live near me and make it - you can come over and give me a big hug and a slice of pie and thank me for changing your life forever! just sayin!

Peanut Butter Oreo Ice Cream Pie

1 box Oreo Cookies
6 tbsp melted butter
2 cups cold heavy cream
1 (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 bottle Smucker’s Chocolate Fudge Microwave Topping

Finely crush about 25 Oreos in a food processor. Mix with melted butter and spread in the bottom of a 9″ round pan for the crust. Freeze for about 10 mins. Meanwhile, lightly crush the remaining Oreos into large pieces. Whisk sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter, and vanilla in large bowl and set aside. Whip the heavy cream to stiff peaks, then fold the whipped cream into the sweetened condensed milk mixture. Pour half of the peanut butter ice cream mixture on top of the frozen Oreo crust. Heat Chocolate Fudge according to the directions on the bottle, and pour half of the bottle in a layer over the ice cream. Add the remaining ice cream, hot fudge, and top with the Oreo cookie pieces. Freeze for at least 6-8 hours before serving. Serve with a scoop of whipped cream!

Apple Picking :: Round One

2011-10-06T15:42:00.003-04:00

a couple of weeks ago we went to the apple orchard for apple picking. we went last year and knew it would become a tradition! we picked some super yummy crisp, sweet apples. we liked the 'courtland' apples the best! fall is starting to set it and we are so excited! ohio falls are the best!

it was a glorious morning and we all had a great time kicking off the first pick of the fall season. Let the games begin!

College Football :: Ohio State Buckeyes

2011-09-28T01:09:00.010-04:00

it's that time again...it's like Christmas but last lots longer! it's time for college football! yay! woot woot! imaginary high fives! even though the buckeyes have had some drama and what not over the past few months. we are still excited and ready to cheer on our Buckeyes!

our first game was back on september 3rd. we started the day early by heading down to campus and going to the 'Skull Session'. it's pretty much a pep-rally a few hours before the game. our amazing (no, seriously amazing) marching band plays, the football team and coach make a quick appearance and say 'go bucks' and then the band continues to play for about an hour. it was our first time going to a 'Skull Session' and it's definitely a cool experience.

let me add that this day was HOT! humid, sweltering hot. 102 degree, 95% humidity. it was sooo HOT! we decided to go walk into the RPAC (one of the schools gyms) and cool down in the AC for a bit. it was lovely. then our friends the Hyde's called asking us if we wanted there tickets to the football game. we got season tickets but not for the first two games. tyson was so excited! we had to go and pick up the tickets, so we walked to high street and got on the bus. heaven sent i tell you! the AC in the bus was so nice and cold. we didn't want to get off! there was someone else who LOVED it! hi....can we say we are happy to be on the bus?

we went and got our tickets (thanks Hyde's) and i dropped tyson and brody off at the game. they had a BLAST! it was so hot and they just kept drinking water. tyson kept pouring water on brody to keep him cool. even the concession stands ran out of water - so they just set up tables with cups of ice water for everyone just to keep hydrated. what a day!

tyson loved taking brody to his very first college football game! i know brody loved being with his daddy and watching football! i swear that kid would sit and watch football all day long! it was definitely a day to remember! and we won the game 50something to 0! go buckeyes!!

heat wave :: splash pad

2011-09-28T00:32:00.004-04:00

September has kinda been wonky when it's come to the temperatures. one day it's humid, sticky and super hot and the next day windy and rainy. luckily the days it was HOT, we were able to hangout with friends and escape to downtown and play at the splash pad. honestly, there is nothing better than soaking your feet in cool water while your cheeks get kissed with the sun. we loved every minute of it!

our days of scorching heat are for sure coming to an end. but all the water fun we've had this summer has been a blast! and the nice part about all of this...is that we've had so much fun, it gives us something too look forward to for next summer!

good bye water! until next summer...

B is for :: Bus

2011-09-28T00:04:00.003-04:00

brody has found a new love. a love for local transportation = the bus! brody loves riding the bus! loves, loves, loves the bus. some mornings when i go in to get him, i will ask him what he wants to do today, and he will reply...'outside, go ride bus'. and if we are lucky...Tyson is home and he will take brody to ride the bus. because tyson is a student at OSU he gets to ride for free and kids 4 and under get to ride for free. i ride with them too, just not as often because it's not free for me.

anywhos...after singing the song 'the wheels on the bus' like a million and one times...we made it for reals! riding the bus started back in June. tyson would take brody on little outings...and now it's almost tradition that everyday after nap (if tyson is home) brody and tyson will run down (literally run down - pretty sure brody doesn't know how to walk, he knows how to run) to High St. hop on the bus, ride down the few blocks to campus, cross the street, hop on another bus and come home. meanwhile, i get dinner ready. or when tyson is done with school for the day, i will go drop brody off with tyson and the two of them will ride the bus home, just for fun! what a lucky little guy, huh?

this is the life i tell ya! :)

{young, wild and free}

2011-09-27T15:53:00.013-04:00

here is some of our summer according to my pictures...

we took full advantage of campus during the summer. even though school is in session, campus is practically dead. which leaves us exploring all over campus. one of brody's favorite spots on campus are these huge chalk board walls that you can write all over. it's quite fun! just like it says above brody's head 'young, wild, free'. that's my boy! exploring and experiencing new things. i wouldn't have it any other way.

playing at the park on late summer evenings. we would go to our favorite park, play on the jungle gyms, explore the park by finding rocks and sticks, walking around the empty pond (its getting a new fountain) chasing squirrels and birds, and then of course ending the night with ice cream! i love the pure joy and excitement in brody's face!

and speaking of ice cream...to cool down on really hot days/nights, we took the time to enjoy LOTS of yummy ice cream!

we had some date nights - but one date night in particular took us to one of our favorite restaurant in columbus.

thank you tip top for a very yummy night!

we had some low key days when it was rainy and humid, so we'd stay inside watching 'Toy Story' and 'Tangled'.

and of course there was always necessity to wearing some cool shades!

columbus high schools started school at the end of august. i love the later part of summer. we have been enjoying our 'friday night lights', by watching high school football games right by our house. and there is a good possibility that we ride the bus down the street to buckeye donuts grab a donut and then go watch the football games.

my boys! these two are best buds! brody adores his daddy! these two have so much fun together. and brody is lucky his daddy loves him so much. tyson takes brody on multiple "man-dates" a week, and they get to enjoy one another. brody is so lucky to have such an awesome daddy, who always is planning up and thinking of fun things for them to do together! talk about a cool daddy!!

love this boy! LOVE HIM! he is always on the go! we've had a fabulous summer! i'm so happy that this is who i get to spend all my days with!

the month of september has had some really hot days and we've been greeted with a few cooler days - Labor day weekend was cool enough to pull out sweatshirts! definitely a sign that fall is coming. yay!

count your blessings :: name them one by one

2011-09-25T23:03:00.006-04:00

"what lies behind us and what lies before us

are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

-- ralph waldo emerson.

it's defintely time for an update! the month of september

has been busy, hard, fun, stressful, exciting, adventurous and

memoriable. all of that will be shared, but for now

i keep thinking about last sunday.

last week during church,

we sang count your blessings. {in the hymnal, it says to sing "brightly!"}

even if we don't share the same faith,

i think these lyrics are so beautiful, and very fitting for this time of year.

i need to sing them to myself {in my head of course} more often...

count your blessings:

"when upon life's billows you are tempest tossed,

when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

count your many blessings, name them one by one,

and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

chorus: count your blessings, name them one by one,

count your blessings, see what God hath done!

count your blessings, name them one by one,

and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

are you ever burdened with a load of care?

does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

count your many blessings, every doubt will fly;

and you will keep singing as the days go by.

when you look at others with their lands and gold,

think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;

count your many blessings. wealth can never buy

your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

so, amid the conflict whether great or small,

do not be disheartened, God is over all;

count your many blessings, angels will attend,

help and comfort give you to your journey's end."

you know something? God is good.

farm days :: i met a farmer today!

2011-09-01T17:25:00.005-04:00

oh how i love my family! and i just love the little adventures we go on! a few weekends ago...we hit up 'farm days' at COSI (our science museum). it was hot. really hot. so it was a short adventure. but nonetheless, brody was in tractor heaven. our farm outing included meeting a farmer, learning about cows and pigs, playing on tractors, splashing in some water and climbing up into a combine harvester. and let me tell you i knew all the names of the farming equipment thanks to all the roommates i had in college who's parents were farmers.
yee-haw! ...or as brody likes to say....yee-how!!!

zoos :: whos

2011-08-31T23:28:00.008-04:00

throughout the summer we've been able to enjoy a few days here and there in the mornings to hit up the zoo before the death of heat and humidity get to much to bear.
i'm not too sure why i feel the need to take pictures almost every time we go to the zoo. because honestly we go at least once a week if not more (weather permitting) and well, everything is the same each time. pretty sure the excitement comes with brody. every time he loves something new. can i just tell you that the age he is in, is fabulous! i love that he knows all the animals, there sounds and most importantly his love for them. with waves of "hello" and "hi guys" and copious amounts of kisses he throws out to the animals is sure to warm any heart.
as of right now, the alligators and goats are by far the favorites. and the runners up might just have to be the moose's and fish where the brown bears live.
other highlights include, riding the train, the carousel, the boat ride and playing in the polar region and the bug play ground.
and last highlight is brody getting his hand stamped on the way out of the zoo. it is a must! hey Columbus Zoo is voted #1 Zoo in America. just saying!
this my friends is summer zoo days at there finest!

beauty :: flowers

2011-08-31T22:09:00.004-04:00

with summer in columbus...it always brings beautiful flowers! in the evenings when we are at the park, i am wandering around taking pictures of the all the outdoor goodness. behind one click of camera, un-edited pure beauty! i seriously can never get enough. i have hundreds of pictures and i am always leaving wanting to come back and take more the next day. nothing better than perfect lighting and beauitful flowers.

ohio state fair :: a fair day

2011-08-19T15:22:00.007-04:00

we ventured to the ohio state fair grounds for an afternoon of fun! our first order of business was to go and see all the animals. mission accomplished! and it was great! brody LOVED all the animals! he made all the animals noises, would say hi and blow them all kisses. i think if he could have, he would have brought a cow home with us. he loves cows!
after making our way through all the animals we hit up a few rides.brody and tyson had a blast going down the big huge yellow slide.
in the kiddie area there was a petting zoo with some goats, lamas, camels, zebra and some other unusal animals. you could purchase little cups full of carrots to feed the animals. brody loved having the animals eat out of his hand. this kid has no fear! i was afraid he was going to have his hand bitten off a few times. but he loved it! brody would have stayed all night long feeding the animals carrots if we would have let him.
after enduring the heat and humidty we took a break and went inside the arena and watched barrel racing. it was a lot of fun!!
and before we left the fair, we hit up the indoor market place and found a candy heaven! we got ourselves a little treat to eat on the way to car.
our time at the fair was really great, but by the time we got to the car, we were super grateful for air conditioning! :)

celebrate :: Lucky 7

2011-08-14T21:22:00.005-04:00

{our video from our wedding reception}

happy 7 years to us! this is one of my favorite post! we've had so many adventures and i know we have so many more to come!

xoxo

must try recipe :: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

2011-08-13T22:19:00.004-04:00

this pie is sooooo delicious! tyson and i were able to polish it off all by ourselves!

1 chocolate cookie crust (I used an Oreo pre-made crust)

filling:

1 cup cream cheese
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter
4 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup whipping cream

topping:

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
2 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup whipping cream

optional:

chopped peanuts
chocolate curls

To make the filling: Using a stand mixer with a beater attachment, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, and sugar until blended.

Whip cream into very soft peaks. Fold whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. Spoon filling into the cookie crust.

Make the topping: In a pan, combine the sugar and 1/2 cup cream. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Lower heat immediately and simmer, without stirring, 5-6 minutes until slightly thick and pale yellow. Remove from heat and stir in butter and chocolate until melted. Let chocolate mixture cool slightly.

Pour the topping over pie and spread to cover completely and evenly. Chill, uncovered, about 1 hour until firm.

it's soooo yummy! enjoy!!

my boys...

2011-08-04T16:56:00.003-04:00

i love them!

hair today :: gone tomorrow

2011-08-03T15:13:00.005-04:00

the brody bear has been sport'in some rather long locks of lovely hair lately. well not even lately...like for the past 4 months. but we've loved it because it just curls right up and he is adorable and it just looked good...well good, up until about a month ago. and we just kept putting it off getting it cut. part of us loved it. and the other part knew it was time for a choppy chop. this wasn't even his first hair cut by any means. so alas brody's mop is no more. boy he looks like such a little boy! and oh how we love him!

Oh july....

2011-07-31T22:53:00.013-04:00

Here are some brilliant things that made me smile this month...

spending lots of time in the water and eating popciles

going on really warm evening walks to see the magicical lighting bugs

meeting tyson for family lunch dates

roaming around campus as they do construction so brody can see all the tractors

feeding the ducks multiple times a week at the park and at mirror lake on campus

being greeted every morning when getting brody with "good morning mommy, i love you"

going to zoombeezi bay and all three of us floating down the lazy river together

riding the rides at the zoo, especially the swings. brody loves the swings.

having lots of bbq's and making smore's

hanging out with friends and play dates with friends

brody starting to say prayers at dinner. so heart warming and we may have both been teary eyed the first time. he is precious!

brody wants to be bare foot all the time. he loves running through the grass bare foot.

trips for "slushies" aka slurpees

dance parties in the kitchen before bed. brody likes to rock out to 'flo rider - ride round' it's pretty much the best thing ever.

blowing bubbles and eating ice cream cones

goodbye july....we are glad that we still have a couple months of summer left! we still have lots of fun things to do!

some fun: a baseball game and cornhole...

2011-07-27T08:53:00.006-04:00

take me out to the ballgame! we went to a columbus clippers baseball game a few weeks ago. it's a definite summer must do! we had a really great time and it just so happened to be DIME a dog night. yup for one night all the hot dogs you can eat for 10 cents each. that was fun! brody is a sports fan and loves watching all sporting events, its pretty awesome. but i am quite sure the mascots are his favorite part. we stayed to sing 'sweet caroline' and cheer on the clippers till the 8th inning, we were winning big time so we headed home. i'm sure we will hit up another game before the summer ends.

some of our good friends invited us over to there house for a 'cornhole' competition. what's corn hole? it's pretty much a game of bean bag toss. we had never heard of it until we moved to ohio. but it's big here and pretty sure it originated in ohio. so we got together with our friends for this friendly competition. we were asked to wear team outfits and have a team name. we were team 'hawaiian domination'. sadly we didn't dominate. but we did have fun being with friends, playing cornhold and eating yummy treats! there was even a "golden" bean bag that would be given to the winning team. however a summer thunder and rain storm graced our presence and there was no winner. not gonna lie, that made me kinda happy. ha! i want to play again and try and win the golden bean bag!! :) muahahha!

Menu of the Week...

2011-07-14T16:43:00.006-04:00

back by popular demand and many request for 'menu of the week' i am back! look forward to a whole new slew of menus and yummy things to eat!!

this is what we are eating for dinner this week...

bbq ribs - these are yummy and EASY! i couldn't find baby back ribs at my grocery store, so i just got pork ribs sans the baby part. and they were seriously so good. you could totally do these on your bbq'er too if you wanted. we will be having these ribs with corn on the cob, baked beans (we like BUSHS Vegetarian style) and watermelon. seriously can't get more summery than that!

crock pot santa fe chicken - this is quite the tasty meal. we like to have it with rice. it's yummy served up as burritos too. we like to top ours with cheese and sour cream. i will also make corn bread muffins to go along side.

grilled chicken with peach bbq sauce - OKAY...so normally when i post a recipe we've already tried it before. but we are going to be brave and try this together. who's with me? its looks super good! and we love chicken and our bbq'er. so let's do this shall we? we will have corn on the cob for sure. we eat a lot of corn on the cob around here in the summer. its just so good! and most likely we will have watermelon too and a side of delish uncle ben's 90 second wild rice. yum!

tomato, bacon, mozzarella, pesto panini - easy and sooo good! the low down: use any bread you want. don't have a panini maker? me neither. either we use our waffle maker or we use the frying pan and don't smash it. anyway you do it. its yummy. i like to add shredded lettuce to mine. i have a wonderful friend who bought me a jar of pesto at Sam's club that is delish. but i see it all the time at the grocery store or it's super easy to make your own pesto too. a great recipe for pesto right here. we will have chips with our sammys and side bowl of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.

for more menu's of the week go Here!

happy cooking and happy eating!!

husband...

2011-07-14T16:35:00.002-04:00

this is my husband.

we laugh.....A LOT!

the 4th in pictues...

2011-07-10T22:22:00.004-04:00

The Fourth of July is one of our favorite holidays. I love celebrating our freedom; I love the colors; I love fireworks and sparklers; I love barbecues and flag cakes; I love all things Americana.

we spent our day playing! we ate lunch at the cheesecake factory for tyson's birthday! took about 5,000 attempts at trying to get a decent picture of brody and of all 3 of us. we played at the park and ran all around. had a yummy bbq dinner, celebrated tyson's birthday and ended the night with a dance party in the kitchen. the weather was perfect! and because we saw the awesome firework show on friday the 1st, we stuck to schedule and brody was in bed and we played with sparklers.

it was a beyond fabulous day!

happy 30 tyson...

2011-07-04T15:38:00.009-04:00

born on the 4th of july!!
we are so happy you are all ours!
we are quite certain 30 hasn't looked better!

we love love love you!
happy happy birthday!

xoxo,
jen & brody

happy 4th

2011-07-04T15:38:00.005-04:00

happy 4th of july! we've been celebrating our weekend by playing in the water, eating popcicles, bbq'ing, making smore's, playing at the park, watching fireworks, going on walks, eating yummy food, playing with sparklers and spending time as a family! it's been perfect!

Red White and Boom....

2011-07-01T23:52:00.007-04:00

with it being out 3rd year of living in state of OH-IO! we figured what better way to start off the 1st of the month than to go to the annual Columbus Ohio Red White and BOOM! this was first for us. we got a stellar parking spot off the beaten path, had plenty of time to walk to our desired destination for viewing the fireworks, lit a sparkler or two and before we knew it, it was 10pm and the sky was lit up in color! we had a fabulous time and brody was in awe and loved every minute of it. the firework show did not disappoint. one of the best shows we've ever seen! it definitely set the mood for a fun weekend!

you should know...

2011-06-27T16:54:00.001-04:00

just how much restraint it takes on my part
to not post 1,0284 photos of brody every single day.

i simply cannot get enough. so glad he's ours forever.

2 peas : in a pod

2011-06-19T21:09:00.003-04:00

this boy LOVES his DADDY!

happy father's day!
xoxoxo

we're painting the roses red...

2011-06-18T22:52:00.002-04:00

yesterday evening we ventured out between summer rain and thunder storms to go check out the flowers at the park of roses. it didn't disappoint, it never does. i just love seeing and smelling the flowers. oh the smell. so-good! and especially since it had just rained, the mixture of rain and roses is bliss. i know my boys had a great time running through the mazes of rose bushes. the simple joys in life are always best!

summertime : picking strawberries

2011-06-17T23:12:00.009-04:00

today brody and i went and picked a bunch of yummy strawberries! it was a perfect day! it was nice and warm, brody helped a little bit and then hung out with his friends picking up leaves, eating berries and throwing hay around, while i picked the berries. we finished by sitting in the shade at the strawberry farm eating strawberry shortcake. it was so good!

oh my goodness i love this little boy! we had such an awesome time! all in a great days work!
the end.

I got a golden ticket...

2011-06-16T21:55:00.003-04:00

this morning brody and i got up and decided to take a little adventure and met up with some friends and went to the Anthony Thomas Chocolate Factory and took a little tour!

and even though there weren't any 'Oompa Loompas' and there wasn't any 'lickable wall paper' or 'fizzy lifting drinks' or 'ever lasting gobstoppers". it was still quite enjoyable with the yummy smells of chocolate, and workers making chocolates and big pots of melting chocolate. mmmmmm yum! we learned some fun facts and of course ate some yummy chocolate!

ohio is famous for their BUCKEYE nuts, and peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate are huge out here! at the end of our tour they gave us all a 'buckeye'.

a chocolate filled with creamy smooth peanut butter filling. so good!

(um hi, can we say awkward pose)
and let's be honest...really who doesn't want a 235 lb. chocolate buckeye for $3,500! we bought 2! ;) ha, i wish!

good times. good friends. and great adventures!

the end.

wherever you are...my love will find you

2011-06-12T23:33:00.002-04:00

i wanted you more than you will ever know, so i sent love to follow wherever you go.

it's high as you wish it. it's quick as an elf. you'll never outgrow it...it strectches itself!

so climb any mountain...climb up to the sky! my love will find you. my love can fly!

make a big splash! go out on a limb! my love will find you. my love can swim!

it never gets lost, never fades, never ends...

if you're working...

or playing...or sitting with friends.

you can dance til' you're dizzy....paint till your blue...there's no place, not one, that my love can't find you.

and if someday you're lonely, or someday you're sad, or you strike out at baseball, or think you've been bad...
just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair. that's me, my sweet baby, my love is right there.

in the green of the grass...in the smell of the sea...in the clouds floating by...at the top of a tree...in the sound crickets make at the end of the day...
"you are loved. you are loved. you are loved." they all say.

my love is so high, and so wide and so deep, it's always right there, even when you're alseep.
so hold your head high and don't be afraid to march to the front of your own parade.
if you're still my small babe or you're all the way grown, my promise to you is you're never alone.

you are my angel, my darling, my star...and my love will find you, wherever you are!

you are loved.

(story: nancy tillman photos: my sweet friend allyson bowcutt)

columbus crew : soccer game

2011-06-12T22:20:00.006-04:00

a little tid bit of soccer info: The Crew Stadium is the home of the 2008 MLS Champions Columbus Crew. The Stadium is a 22,555 seat facility and it was the first venue in the United States built specifically for soccer.

wednesday night we all went to a columbus crew soccer game. it was our first official crew game and it was a lot of fun. we played the real salt lake and we beat'um.

woot woot!

we wore our team colors (yes, we've got spirit) ;), it also happened to be $1 brat night. barf! tyson enjoyed a couple dollar brats. :) and brody had a great time cheering and mingling with our friends, eating some red vines and guzzling down a ton of ice water. it just happened to be an very warm 94 degree night. but nonetheless fun!

the end.

what do you do???

2011-06-06T23:30:00.005-04:00

what do you do....when you find this at Costco? ........

yup that's right a gigundous huge bear?

cute, right?

well you take him home with you...duh!

not too sure who's more excited me or brody!

this is how two year olds party...

2011-05-31T15:10:00.004-04:00

what could be more fun than having a SUPER HERO party when you are TWO?
(okay, so brody was not officially 2, before his party. we did his party early, but boy howdy we celebrated!)

this is how it all went down...

here's the invite i designed...

my attempt at making brody his super hero cape!

and everyone was greeted at the door...

we decided to keep it simple and just have a fun BBQ with friends, so the food and drinks went a little something like this...

and all the kiddos played and brody ran all around! he was loving it all, especially being outside playing! he did not want his picture taken. can you tell? he's like, hello mom, there is not enough time for pictures...we need to PLAY! :)

and while all the kids played...the grown-ups played a nice game of Rock-Paper-Scissors....and everytime someone won, they'd get a "stratch it card" that i made, and some lucky winners won a prize. this was definitely awesome!

SUPER HEROS...

and probably my most favorite picture out of ALL the MANY pictures that were taken was this one of brody and our friend Rachael. Brody "pound'in it" with Rachael. too cute!

and of course a group shot...i always forget to take a group shot...so atleast before everyone left i got one. we are missing quite a few friends....but nonetheless we got a shot! :)

thanks to all our SUPER friends who made this party so special!

brody turns 2!

2011-05-30T22:33:00.003-04:00

my baby turned 2 today!

he got lucky and got one of his gifts when he came downstairs this morning...

he's in love with it!

after a test drive on "buzz" as he calls it...

we took advantage of the warm 95 degree weather and went to the water park Zoombezi Bay! Brody loved every minute of it!

for his birthday theme we went with THOMAS the TRAIN! Brody loves Thomas aka "CHOO". it was a big hit!

of course there were pom-poms and bunting banners! always a must!

i also made a big banner that had these signs hanging on them...

Brody is 2! we are still working on the fingers, but this is him holding up "2".

brody had a super yummy dinner and of course his two favorites kelli and neal joined us for dinner and birthday cake!

a THOMAS the TRAIN theme...calls for a THOMAS CAKE!

mmmmmm delish! he LOVES frosting! just like his mom!!

best friends...

a tired little bear who had a very great day!!!

happy happy birthday!
we love you more than anything!
xoxo

MY tiny tumbler...

2011-05-26T16:04:00.003-04:00

brody did another 9 week session of 'tiny tumblers' and last friday was his last class. he did a a winter session and loved it. so i figured why not do the spring too! he love, love, LOVED it. nothing better than being able to roll around, jump, run, swing and play!

oh my little monkey! it's so much fun to see you learning and being adventerous. you are so strong and so brave! i love being able to do such fun things with you! i love you!

circus fun:

2011-05-26T15:24:00.004-04:00

so back on friday the 13th, while i went out to dinner with some girlfriends, tyson took brody on a little man-date to the Circus! The two of them had sooo much fun watching all the acts, laughing and clapping, eating lots of yummy popcorn and red vines! brody was in heaven and loved it!! brody especially loved the elephants! these two had a great time together!

Party Time...

2011-05-16T21:03:00.006-04:00

more to come from Brody's 2nd Birthday Party.
i was busy being hostess.

so between tyson and i tryng to get some shots, we ended up with quite a few pics.
once i go through all of them i will post.
thanks for all who came and made it so special.

xoxo.

Pictures on the Run...

2011-05-16T21:02:00.004-04:00

dare i say that the past couple of weeks have been nice outside? yeah, up until yesterday afternoon when the temperatures dropped and it's been rainy and cold. but up until then spring was here almost summer like! it was lovey. and every morning brody and i have been getting up and going for a run. pure bliss i tell you! he loves it. i love it. doesn't get any better than that.

so last Thursday was a particularly nice morning, so i thought i would take my camera along and take some pictures on the run. i LOVE running in my neighborhood and in Columbus for that matter. we've lived in a lot of places and Columbus is by far my favorite place to run. so a few of the pictures i took while in the midst of running and the rest i actually took after we ran and we did a cool down walk. nonetheless it was fun to capture pictures of all the fun things we see...

so without further ado'...

pictures on the run!

(getting ready to go)

(dandelions are a must! this kid is obsessed with them)

(hello shadows)

(my neighborhood has lots of little churches all around. i love the red doors and the ship above the doors... the ship above the doors makes me think of Invictus -"I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.")

(afri:cola) click on the link to learn more.

(many of the streets where we live are orignal cobble stone. i love the cobble stone roads they just seem so historic)

(hello kitty. pretty sure brody was in heaven. he LOVES cats. this cat was nice enough to jump up and say hello. brody loved every second!)

(love me some flip flops! it was HOT on thursday. like 90 degress 100% humidity)

(big huge bushes line a whole street with these pretty flowers)

(this is the epitome of living right next to campus. pizza places EVERYWHERE. once we counted that we had over 20 pizza places within .25 mile of our house. it just so happens that this x-large pizza for 6.25 is actually really good and during the week it's only $5.75, yes we'd know! :) )

(red)

(bikes)

welp, there you have it. we went on a 3.5 mile run and a half mile cool down walk and we had views of all sorts of cool things.

the end.

circus elephants...

2011-05-10T22:37:00.010-04:00

the barnum & bailey circus is in town this weekend, and the animals are here! a friend of mine told me that the elephants get off the train in there neighborhood and then make a 3 mile walk up to the Nationwide Arena. so we went to see the Elephants! and it was so fun! i love how the hold onto each others tails. love it!

we hungout at the park for a bit and then headed across the street to the train tracks where the circus train was...

brody LOVED seeing the "chooo"

can you believe the elephants fit in the train cars? it just didn't seem like the cars were big enough. but sure enough they are!

the elephants came out of the train cars and they were all lined up and then started to head our way...

once they passed us, we walked over to the street to watch them pass by. they walked wayyyy faster than i thought they would. we thought that maybe they would kinda like mosey along but i think they were happy to be out of their train because they were fast. fast and CUTE!

yay for the elephants!

we also took a little video! seriously i can't get over how cute they are hanging onto each others tails!

moms day.

2011-05-08T21:43:00.004-04:00

(brody and i playing with the ipad camera . mother's day 2011)

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

this quote is among my favorites.
it reminds me every time how much work motherhood really is and how it can truly mold you in all areas of your life, if you let it. there is a constant desire for mothers everywhere to do it all and look good doing it. i strive every day to just do my best and i know i have a long way to go. with my own mother as my role model, i take baby steps to where i hope to be. remembering the little things, and what's truly important will get me there. (with a lot of prayer).

i feel so lucky to be this little guys mom.

happy mother's day. xoxo.

tut-tut...

2011-05-05T00:12:00.004-04:00

looks like rain!

dear mother nature,

we are totally over all this rain. please stop. we want warmth and sunshine. we miss it. this is by far the wetest spring we've had since living in Columbus. i get that i grew up in oregon and i should be use to it, but let's face it, this is not oregon! so, we get it. so, ya know... let's move it along somewhere else. thank you.

love,
we are tired of alllllllllllllllllll the rain crowthers.

the end.

no need for many words...

2011-05-05T00:09:00.003-04:00

i can't get over these pictures because they exude PURE happiness. it kills me.

he is so sweet i can hardly stand it.

that's all for now.

The Royal Wedding :: William + Kate

2011-05-02T15:19:00.002-04:00

to be honest, i wasnt really planning on watching the Royal Wedding friday morning. but when i woke up and turned on the t.v. to the Today Show, William and Kate were just coming out onto the balcony at Buckingham Palace, i was hooked! Seriously, the only thing I was able to think about all day was that amazing dress! Didn't Catherine look incredible? Like a princess! (Not to mention her sister Pippa's dress was stunning too!)

i was wishing i had caught it all. but no worries, i have an awesome friend who DVR'd it and invited me over friday night to watch it. i had just wished we would of had cool little hats to wear! ;)

I found my myself getting sucked into the fairytale of it all and (I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it)! but i got all warm and fuzzy inside when I saw William mouth to Kate "you look beauitful"! She was quite the sight to behold. I loved every minute of it.

all weekend i watched different "recaps" and specials about the royal couple. tyson was very happy he didn't have to watch any of it. :)

So what did you think of the Royal Wedding? Do you love these two as much as I do, or am I just a big fat sucker for a good "happily ever after?"

Easter Weekend...

2011-04-30T22:48:00.012-04:00

we had a really great easter weekend! we started our saturday morning by taking brody to the park for an easter egg hunt. pretty sure he loved it. we did a practice easter egg hunt on wednesday to prep him for the big day and he totally caught on and thought it was great. so when saturday's egg hunt came, he was ready! he picked up about 20 eggs and after that he was ready to jet off and play. but it was fun while it lasted for the entire 30 seconds. :) and an easter egg hunt isnt complete without a creepy easter bunny.

this is our best attempt at a family photo on timer. classic.

sunday morning the easter bunny had come and left brody a pretty sweet easter basket full of all sorts of goodies. but his favorite thing by far was his truck.

brody in his new easter outfit...pretty sure he is the most adorable little guy EVER!
can you tell he is thrilled to have his picture taken? ;) all he wanted was his truck back that we took from him to take the photo!

before church we headed over to our good friends the tolmans house for breakfast. and of course we had to take a couple of pictures...

without a doubt kelli and neal are brody's two favorite friends. he LOVES them so much!!

we had a great time at church and afterwards we had a really yummy easter dinner with some wonderful friends!

it was a wonderful day filled with uplifting messages and sharing our day with people we love.

Menu of the week

2011-04-25T23:06:00.003-04:00

this is what we are eating for dinner this week...

grilled chicken with spanich strawberry salad - we will just take chicken breast and grill them on the BBQ'er. and add the side salad and it will be delish! we will also have some baked beans.

minestrone soup - it's been super rainy around here, so soup just seems like the right thing to eat when it's so wet outside. we will just have some yummy rolls with our soup.

ham and cheese sliders - these are oh so yummy! i've shared these before and i promise you, you will like them too! the recipe does call for a 1/3 cup of miracle whip, i just use Mayo. it's just to spread on the inside of the roll. so really you can do what you want. i just like mayo, so that's what we do. we will have pasta salad and fresh cantalope and stawberrys. yummy!

ginger peanut chicken lettuce wraps - this recipe is for salads, but i've tweaked it and make it into lettuce wraps. i don't add anything with this meal. it's quite filling.

Remember you can always find more 'menu's of the week' right Here!

happy cooking and happy eating!!!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T21:47:00.002-04:00

He Lives!

2011-04-24T18:20:00.001-04:00

flying kites...

2011-04-18T23:46:00.002-04:00

cleaning and cookies...

2011-04-18T22:58:00.004-04:00

so pretty much brody is obsessed with the vacuum. OBSESSED! but i'm not going to lie he's actually really good! he gets a little upset when i have to take my turn to vacuum, but once he settles down he just watches and smiles.

the other night we made some cookies and brody was my happy taste tester! when did my baby decide to get so big. sob! but he sure is one cute 22 month old. love love love him!

menu of the week

2011-04-18T19:38:00.002-04:00

this is what we are eating for dinner this week!

southwest salad - we will be having this yummy salad! and you know i will use a rotisserie chicken. it's really really good and the dressing is delicious.

Hamburgers - it's lovely spring weather, so we are going to start grilling as much as possible. so BBQ'ed hamburgers we like to add some BBQ Sauce (sweet baby rays sauce) and cheese to melt top right before taking them off the grill. we will have herbed potato salad grilled asparagas and rasberries and strawberries with whip cream.

Lasagna Roll Ups - if you don't want to use fresh herbs when making this, no worries. just add like one heaping tablespoon of dry italian seasoning. works perfect! we will have garlic bread and green salad.

Thai Roast Beef Wrap - this is a nice light meal. and you don't even have to use Roast Beef. shocking i know, but we will use rotisserie chicken. ha. but it's so good with chicken. but really you could use whatever you'd like! along side we will have sweet potato fries (from trader joes).

and as always check out more 'menu's of the week' right here!

happy happy cooking!

menu of the week...

2011-04-11T22:23:00.003-04:00

this is what we are eating for dinner this week...

french toast - we love breakfast for dinner! we will have turkey bacon and fresh fruit. yum!

creamy baked chicken taquitos - these have been a buzz all over the food blog w orld. and i've heard they are super yummy! so i am giving them a try. we will have a side of corn and chips and salsa. ole'!

french dip sandwhiches - do you feel a "french theme" going on this week? ha. yummy french dip sandwhiches. 1. i love my crock pot and 2.this is a no fail super delish meal. we will have side green salads and strawberries with whip cream.

Turkey Cheese Hot Dogs - don't go eww gross. because you wouldnt even know that JohnsonVille Turkey Cheese Hot Dogs, weren't real hot dogs. they are GOOD. no they are AMAZING. and we will grill them on the BBQ'er, and have chips, baked beans and corn on the cob and it's going to be the bomb!

and check out more 'menu's of the week' right here!

have a happy week and happy cooking!

take me to the movies...

2011-04-09T22:37:00.005-04:00

tonight we took the brody bear to the movies! his very first movie ever!

we went and saw...

yup Disney's Tangled. and it was such a great movie. so cute. and brody loved it! he did an amazing job and really enjoyed it the entire time.

we took in brody's car seat into the theater so he could sit up high and be more comfortable. he had his drink and some popcorn and one of brody's favorite treats is red vines and he thoroughly enjoyed himself some red vines during the movie as well.

yay for going to the movies. this was definitely a fantastic family outting!

pretty random: fun with friends, a first and a couple random pictures...

2011-04-07T22:08:00.005-04:00

we've been busy around here having fun...it's about time for a new post, right?

we gave brody his first ice cream cone last week. he thought it was pretty awesome!

we've been having some really good times with friends. we hit up the firehouse museum with our friends the Leavitt's. i only snapped a couple pictures. there is a bell that is really fun to ring and brody loved it.

it snowed last week. barf! but good news, the sun has been shinning and flowers are blooming! i hope winter is OVER.

we were on campus the other day and one of the buildings on campus was celebrating it's 1 year anniversary. so we ate some cake and brody got a crown.

a few weekends ago i took a little day trip down to Cinncinati with some great friends to go to IKEA. i love friends who will go along with my ideas. ideas as in taking random pictures. you don't have to, but i think we are funny!

and most recently...today. we enjoyed some beautiful weather and went to the zoo with friends! it's so much fun going to the zoo! brody loves the animals and i love how excited he gets. the polar bears were a big hit and he loves the fish where the big brown bears are located.

and lastly while at the zoo, a trip is never complete until you take a ride on the carousel. good times were had. brody with his friend riker. these two are buddies! well they were until riker put his finger in brody's mouth and brody totally bit rikers finger. lovely.

a couple other note worthy happenings... brody started up 'tiny tumblers' (aka gymnastics) again.

brody had been really grumpy so i took him to the doctor and he had a double ear infection. sad! but he never gets sick and alway sleeps great, so it was hard to know that was the problem. but he got medicane is soo much better. yay!

brody turned 22 months and it be the best kid ever! he's so hilarious. super active. a chatter bug and just a big ball of love! love him. like A LOT.

tyson took his 2nd qualifier for his PhD and is very happy it's over. we all are. :)

tyson started up his spring quarter. can you believe we are finishing up our 3rd year of grad school! crazy how time flys. 3 years down, 2 to go! yippee!

the end.

menu of the week...

2011-04-04T14:31:00.006-04:00

this is what we are eating for dinner this week!

Amy's Sloppy Joes - tyson's sisters are seriously AMAZING cooks! AMAZING! one of tyson's sisters Amy, happens to make killer sloppy joes. i've always liked my mom's sloppy joe's, but i dunno Amy's are SO GOOD! I think it's the can of pork'n'beans. nonetheless they are bomb.com!

so what you will need is:
1 lb browned ground beef
small/medium chopped onion
1 sloppy joe seasoing packet
7 oz can diced green chilis
1 can v8 OR 1 can tomatoe soup ( i use the soup)
2 cans pork n beans drained

Brown your meat with the onion (drain oil from the meat) then add the seasoning packet and can of v8 or tomatoe soup. Combine meat mixture and other ingredients in a pan or crock pot and let cook as long as you like! we will have the sloppy joe's on hamburger buns and add cheese. we will also have corn on the cob and chips.

black bean spinach enchiladas - don't think these aren't good because they are meatless. they are actually REALLY good! And if you really wanted too, you could totally add chicken to them. it's like a bean and cheese burrito kicked up a notch. it's nice, simple and quick! I like to use colby jack cheese instead of the pepper jack, but obviously you can do whatever pleases you! and of course i will serve this corn souffle. it really is super yummy!!! we will also have a side green salad.

sesame peanut noodles - this is a new recipe for me that we are going to try this week. it looks easy and really yummy. a few things i changge, is use whole wheat spaghetti noodles and i'm going to also just add in my own veggies that sound good, like sugar snap peas and some asaparagus. i will also pick up some egg rolls from our favorite asian restaurant. yummy! i'll let you know how this recipe goes!

teriyaki chicken - this is a really yummy dish. i personally leave the fish sauce out of this dish. i will serve it up with brown rice and fresh fruit.

check our more 'menu's of the week' right Here!

Happy Happy Cooking!!

menu of the week...

2011-03-28T15:56:00.002-04:00

this is what we are eating for dinner this week!

cheesy chicken and wild rice casserole - will serve with steamed broccoli and asparagus and blueberry muffins.

breakfast sandwiches - we will just fry up some eggs and put them on whole wheat english muffins, add some thin slices honey ham and a slice of cheese. and it may sound really weird, but we also put grape jelly on our english muffins. its the bomb! we will also have some hash browns and fresh fruit.

capresa sandwiches with garlic basil mayo - along side we will have chips, apple slices and baby carrots.

pear pecan salads - i will buy as always a rotisserie chicken and add it to the salad and i will just serve some rolls. simply and tasty good!

and as always you can check out more menu's of the week right here!

happy happy cooking!!

blooms and butterflies...

2011-03-28T14:39:00.007-04:00

last week we headed over to the Columbus Franklin Park and Conservatory for the 'blooms and butterflies' exhibit, in the month of march in one of there indoor botanical garden areas they release butterfiles all over and it's really cool. it was our very first time going and we were very happy we went and checked it out.

we went on one of the days where they were actually releasing more butterflies which we thought was going to be really fun to see, but it was actually kinda lame, well to us it was. a lady came in with two big clear bins that had lots of butterflies inside, but instead of just opening up the bins and letting them go, she took each butterfly out one by one and explained a little something about each butterfly. the first like 25 were cool, but then it was dragging on, so we walked around some more and then bounced on out. it was still totally worth seeing all the beautiful plants, flowers and hundreds of butterflies.

and of course without fail i have a palethora of pictures.

here's a taste of what we enjoyed...

brody loved this bird. as you can tell brody's like, 'hi bird, here eat my finger'. awe-some!

one of our favorite gardens was the 'palms'. so so pretty. made us wish we were somewhere WARM and tropical!

some of the palm trees were huge - this one in particular was giant, the picture doesnt do it justice.

however...

you can tell how big this palm was.

LOVED the orange trees! they reminded me of when tyson and i lived in California and how they were in everyone's back yards. i want an orange tree!

also loved the little pinapple plants!

there was also lots of different pieces of blown glass in a bunch of the differentgardens. it was beautiful!

and then there were the butterflies...

see the butterfly in this one...oh, poor poor butterfly. just as we were putting the butterfly on brody's finger. brody decided it was just easier to snatch it in his hand and proceed to smash the crap out of it. Opps! we were able to get him to let go and release it, poor little fella fluttered to the ground. not gonna lie, it was sad, but we were totally laughing. but with the next one he did much better! :)

and that's the end of our time at the 'blooms and butterflies'. i'd defintely go back next year, but won't worry about going on a day when they "relase" the butterflies. it really is nice though to live pretty much down the street from the city and be surrounded by such awesome parks and gardens.

the end.

attention class...

2011-03-27T23:19:00.003-04:00

one of brody's favorite things to do in tyson's office...

nothing beats the chalk board. i love that the simple things in life bring so much joy! this kid is getting pretty good at writing aka scribbling/drawing all over the board, soon he'll be leaving up homework assignments. :) love this kid!!!

menu of the week...

2011-03-21T15:10:00.005-04:00

okay, so spring break is in full swing here at chateau crowther! it will be a chill week while tyson is home, because he is also studying for a HUGE test that he takes next week. but we will still take advantage of having him home, so dinners are easy easy easy this week!

this is what we are eating for dinner this week...

blackend chicken alfredo - served with garlic bread and salad

quesadillas - we like to use colby and monterey jack cheese. melted between two tortillas. then we top our quesadillas with shredded lettuce, tomato, corn, black beans, sour cream and we will also use the left over bbq cilantro lime dressing for dipping, from last weeks salads. oh so good! i will make fruit skewers to have along side. i will use, oranges, blue berries, pineapple, grapes, strawberries, raspberries and cantaloupe. it's always more fun eating off a stick, right? ok, well for brody it is! :)

chicken skewers with peanut sauce - i've made this recipe a ton of times. i actually have it memorized. :) i made it for the first time when we lived in Houston Texas for the summer and tyson was selling pest control. that was over 4 years ago!! so yeah, we must like it, because i've been making it ever since! served with brown rice and a side of steamed asparagus.

cuban sandwiches - and seeing that we aren't going anywhere for spring break, i figured we'd bring back some memories, of like when we went to Miami and went to little cuba aka little havana and experienced a true cuban. it didn't disappoint! so i'm going try this recipe out! i hope it's just as good! we will have chips, baked beans and fruit skewers. :)

and as always...if you want to check out more menu's of the week...go here!

happy spring and happy cooking! :)

images - 1,kraft 2, foodblog 3, letsdish

LUCKY CHARM...

2011-03-17T23:58:00.002-04:00

we make the world go round.

2011-03-16T22:23:00.008-04:00

i can't believe that march is already half way over! seriously where did it go?

life just kind of moves on, ya know? we make the world go round, doing our normal routine.

we finished up brody's 'sporty for shorties' class and his 'tiny tumblers' gymnastics class. yup you read that right. for the past 9 weeks, on thursdays we had the sporties and on fridays we had gymnastics and it was so much fun! brody LOVED both this classes and had the best time!
sporties really was a blast. brody learned, hockey, soccer, golf, track, basketball, football. tyson was able to come a few times too, which was even double the fun. these are pictures from last week from our last classes. brody LOVES basketball.

brody's gymnastics class was awesome! for me the best part was always at the beginning of the class was when all the kids got a carpet square to sit on and then we'd help them stretch, it was so cute! it was always hard to get a picture of brody durning gymnastics, because he was ALWAYS running or jumping. but this picture on the balance beam is great.

the weather in march definitely has it's ups and downs here in ohio. we've been teased with a day of 60 degree and the next 4 inches of snow. ugh! wind, rain and flooding. but when it has been sunny, we've taken full advantage. good news!! - there are signs of spring and that makes me giddy!!!!

when it's been sunny outside but still chilly, i always put brody's bear suit on, because it keeps him toasty. plus, he likes it!

playing at the park on the jungle gym

down in the 'short north' at our favorite rooster.

awe, our first sighting of spring!!! hooray!!

some other random pictures...

getting cheezzzz'd

making brody a 'B' pancake

one day were were waiting for tyson to get out of class, and outside of the building tyson has class in, there are these chalk board walls that you can draw all over. they are really cool. brody just happened to find a piece of chalk so he decided to leave his mark of art!

playing with the train set at barnes and noble

brody brushing his teeth. he loves it.

my little love.

in other news...brody and i go and see tyson on campus often. we go walk around target and go to the science muesum. we have play dates with friends. we play with the train set at barnes and noble and we always go to lunch with tyson on mwf's. we read books and play with balls and cars. brody brushes his teeth 10 times a day. we work on not having meltdowns- thanks goodness they are far and few between, we pretend we are climbing mt. everest (the stairs). brody and tyson have man-dates weekly. brody goes swimming with tyson while i run. we sing songs like 'sleepy bunny' 200 times a day. we all ride the elevator up and down at the gym. we color. we make smoothies and cuddle. teaching brody not to scream. we go to the grocrey store so brody can ride in the shopping cart that looks like a car. brody rides on my back and i crawl around the family room. tyson takes brody to the park to shoot hoops and i make dinner. we watch thomas the train. life is so FUN and GOOD.

one things for sure, i know that i'm doing exactly what i'm supposed to be doing. i was born to be a mother. i was born to take care of a family. that's my purpose on this earth, i truly believe. yes there are other things that i'm good at and love doing, and i'll never give those up. but i'm happy to embrace being a mother and helping the world to go round, one poopy diaper/kiss/meltdown/laugh/hug at a time. i am happy and content.

menu of the week

2011-03-14T21:46:00.002-04:00

this is what we are eating for dinner this week...

it's finals week/the start of spring break for us... so this week is full of easy and fast meals -and the crock pot is my friend!! :)

white bean chicken chili - we will have this with fritos, cheese, sour cream. yum!

baked ravioli - this is a nice fast and yummy meal to put together. we will also have a green salad and garlic bread.

french dip sandwhiches - on the side we will have steamed asparagus, a box of 'suddenly pasta salad' and strawberries and cantaloupe.

bbq chicken salads with creamy bbq cilantro lime dressing - we love to used romaine lettuce and add red and green peppers, sweet yellow corn, black beans, red onion, avacado. and of course i will use a store bought rotisserie chicken. just helps make things go so quick and easy!

if you want to check out more menu's of the week go here!

Happy Happy Cooking!!!

images - 1, orc 2, marthastweart 3, mkc