9 Years, 9 Songs

Since Dan and I are celebrating our 9 year wedding anniversary, I thought I would highlight 9 songs that remind me of our relationship in some shape or form.

When it comes to music, we have completely different taste! I like contemporary Christian music and tend to like songs based on the lyrics and the message in the song. Dan, however, loves a wide variety of music and listens to all aspects of songs to judge if it's good or not...like each individual instrument part, the vocals, the beats, the way it all blends together, blah, blah, blah! :)

When we're together, we generally listen to whatever he chooses because he claims that he can't stand my sappy music. :) Because of this, he has introduced me to a lot of songs that I actually like.

 Here are 9 songs that remind me of us and a description of why:

1)"Jeremy" by Pearl Jam

When we first met back in 1999, Dan's favorite band was Pearl Jam. The only song of theirs that I had even heard was "Jeremy" so it was common ground. He made me a cassette tape (how funny) with his favorite Pearl Jam songs and I memorized them going back and forth to college. We went to 2 concerts together, as well...oh the things you do for love?!?!

 2) "Back At One" by Brian McKnight

This was "our song" when we were dating. We didn't listen to it much but I liked it so he went along with it. 

3) "When It's Love" by Van Halen

We played this song in our wedding! (Yes, you read that right!) I made a picture slide show of the 4 years we dated and Dan suggested that we play this song during it. The lyrics are appropriate and it fit us well so it was a keeper. :)

4) "Hey Ya" by OutKast

This is our "honeymoon song." Not that we even like the song, but back in November 2003 this was huge hit. It was playing EVERYWHERE we went during our honeymoon...at restaurants, on TV, in stores, on the radio (2-3 different stations at one time!) Okay, so it probably wasn't that extreme, but it was enough that we made a joke out of it and refer to this as the "honeymoon song."

5) "Boomin'"by Toby Mac

The first five years of our marriage (before we had kids), Dan was the Youth Pastor at our church. Every year we would take the kids to a concert called "Winter Jam." It was in a huge arena filled with tons of hyper, screaming teens! It was my LEAST favorite event to do each year. (As if leading the youth isn't stressful enough, try keeping track of 20+ kids in a setting like that!) Anyway, Dan would always take a group of them down on the floor where they could dance and crowd surf. I stayed up in the stands with the kids that just enjoyed the music from afar. Even though I didn't like being away from him during this concert, I always loved that he would just be silly and have fun with the kids. Toby Mac was always our favorite performance and he puts on an awesome show!!!

6)"Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice

Dan knows every word to this song and it cracks me up when he sings it!

7) "Beautiful Day" by U2

After we had Trinity and were finally released from the hospital to take her home, Dan played this song as we drove off with her! I sat in the back seat with her and enjoyed the whole ride there. I thought it was so sweet that he picked out a song for her!

8) "Superman is Dead" by Our Lady Peace

Dan plays this on his guitar and he gives Nehemiah his old guitar to jam on and Trinity gets drumsticks to beat pillows with. It is halarious watching the three of them "rock out!" Not to metion that Trinity has to belt out the words to the chorus! I seriously can't help but laugh out loud when the three of them are having fun together!

9) "Mountain Time" by Joe Bonamassa

This is our "bedtime song." We play this song periodically as we fall asleep. (Dan plays it on his iPhone.) It's over 10 minutes long so we usually don't even get to hear the whole thing, but Joe Banamassa can play the guitar! It's a great song!

After 9 years of marriage, 4 years of dating and 2 children, we have so many memories (and songs) together! I have learned a LOT over the years! Most of the time marriage is fun and exciting, but when it's not, it's still a huge BLESSING because I am married to my best friend and we know how to work things out, laugh together, support one another, and lean on God to improve our shortcomings. I love Dan more today than I did way back when we said "I do!" I am thankful everyday that we get to experience life together, raise our family, and grow older together!

Happy Anniversary, Dan! I love you!

Only 41 more years until our BIG PARTY!!! :)

I Ran A 5K!

On Saturday, March 10th, I accomplished one of my biggest goals I set for myself through my weight loss journey.

I ran a 5K without stopping!

The Fire Department Dan works for held a "Fire House 5K for Autism." There were 255 participants and we all raised over $5,000 for Touch Point, an awesome autism organization! It was a huge success and I'm sure it will be an annual event from here on.

I ran with my husband and 4 of our good friends. I had trained for 10 weeks and was well aware that I am very SLOW so I told all my buddies that it would not hurt my feelings if they ran ahead of me and left me in their dust. :) Within the first half mile, 3 of them had sped off and both of my shoes came untied...

I was tempted to stop and tie them, but decided that as long as they weren't falling off I was going to keep on running. Luckily enough, I had pulled the laces pretty tight when I tied them so they stayed on the entire time.

After a mile, another one of my friends sped away from me and the other one began walking. I was now on my own and second-to-last within our little group of 6.

I had been told that 5K's are more mental than anything else. That was true!
I found myself thinking about how loud my music was and maybe I should stop to turn it down or finally tie my shoes. I wondered why it seemed like I had been running forever and when the finish line was going to be in sight. I thought about how I would never catch up with my 4 friends ahead of me. But something in me just kept going. My goal was to run this thing without stopping!

It was only 38* the morning of the run so I prepared myself with gloves and ear muffs. Even though it was chilly, I was really starting to warm up. I pulled my ear muffs off and wrapped them around my arm. I took my gloves off and just held them in my hand. I even rolled my sleeves up as much as I could. There was a slight breeze and I really appreciated it at this time.

There was a pretty good hill towards the end and the girls around me started walking up it. I told myself that even if I was jogging at their pace, I was not going to walk. I ended up passing one of the girls and as I gained up on the other one she started running again and I could not catch up to her. The girl I had initially passed ended up passing me once she started running again so I was in the same spot I started out in...but I did not walk!

As I neared the fire house, our good friend Chuck was there taking pictures of us with his camera!
(Thanks Chuck! You know how I am with scrap booking!) :)
He and his kids cheered me on and I even got a high-five from one of them!

As I finished, Dan was waiting for me at the finish line! I felt SO GOOD and I was SO HAPPY to have him there supporting me!
He had just ran a 31 minute 5K with absolutely NO training too! Good job, Dan!

This is us shortly after I crossed the finish line:

My official time was 34 minutes and 7 seconds, which figures up to about 11 minute miles.
I came in 120th out of 255 participants.
In my age group (30-39), I finished 15th out of 53!
In my friend group of 6, I came in 5th...and the 6th place person hadn't trained at all.

However, I was VERY pleased with all of this!
I mean considering that 10 weeks prior to this, I was 18 pounds heavier and couldn't run longer than 1 minute straight. I had come a LONG way and I was so proud of myself! It's also nice that I'm not a very competitive person so I really didn't care that other people beat me! :)

Now that I have done this, I want to keep this running thing up. I am not a good (or fast) runner, but it has helped me to lose weight and get my heart pumping a few times a week. It has improved my endurance and blood sugars, as well.

I have decided (along with Dan and at least two of our good friends) that we are going to try and run 3-4 5K's a year now! I'm so excited! Our next one will be in May! This will keep me motivated to keep going.

Here's my workout/running buddy, Jacinda! :)

I honestly have no desire to run more than a 5K because running can be kind of boring, but I just feel so empowered by doing this! This was a MAJOR accomplishment for me!

I never thought in a million years that I could ever run a 5K without stopping...but I did it!!!!
I hope this inspires you to pursue something you want to achieve. The sky is the limit and YOU are the only person stopping yourself from accomplishing things you want in life!

Anyone want to join me in my next 5K? I won't get mad if you beat my time, I promise! :)

Starting Our Christmas Family Tradition...

Dan and I were trying to come up with a family tradition to do with our kids each year. We want them to look back and think about things that we did with them and how much fun it was!

With my experience with kids, I have found that if you make things fun (like a project), they get more out of it. I have seen the Gingerbread House kits at the store and even have a few friends that have posted pictures of their families making them together on facebook. I loved that idea, but I want our tradition to incorporate the "real" meaning of Christmas so we are teaching them why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

So what did we come up with? Making an edible Nativity Scene! (No, we did not eat it!)

This was such a fun project and we all had a great time participating in making it! I cheated and used a hot glue gun to get the graham crackers to stick to the milk carton so technically our nativity scene is not completely edible.

Since Dan is so creative, I gave him the job of making all the little people and most of the animals. Trinity was such a great little helper and she made a few funny looking sheep of her own. :) She also helped him add details to the little people and positioned them in their places.

Okay, so Nehemiah didn't do much of anything to help this year! :) He watched and looked cute doing it! We would sneak him graham crackers to snack on and he would walk back and forth from the living room and dining room to see what we were up to while making a crumb trail all over.

Here is how our little people turned out:

Mary is on the left and Joseph is on the right. Keep in mind that she just had a baby so it's perfectly okay that she is so large. They are made from large marshmallows and have pretzels as arms. The heads are gummy smiley faces and they are draped with fruit roll-ups. Baby Jesus is laying in a lovely manger made from the inside of a mint oreo cookie and the edges are pretzels. (I came up with that one!) His swaddling clothes are fruit roll-ups...strawberry flavored!

The angel is made from the same materials but has a large marshmallow cut in half to make the wings. The star is hot glued (yep, that was my part again) and I used pretzels and a M&M for it.

This is the shepard (with a really long neck), 2 sheep, and the donkey that Mary rode on...complete with a little fruit roll-up saddle.

The 3 wise men have crowns of gummy smiley faces.

I know this doesn't "go" in a Nativity Scene, but Charlie Brown was a very important part of our project. My Aunt gave this to me and it quotes the whole story from Luke that explains that Jesus was born. Trinity likes to play with it but it was a fitting and fun way to hear the Christmas story!

After that, Dan and I briefly talked about how we celebrate that Jesus was born on Christmas. It's not about presents or Santa, it's about Jesus! Dan did a good job of showing her how the wise men came to see him and how the angel appeared. It's hard to explain to a 3 year old all the details of it, but I think we did pretty good. Now when we ask her why we celebrate Christmas, she responds, "Baby Jesus!" I think our goal was accomplished!

When we were done, she played with our nativity scene for a long time. She made all of the wise men and animals face baby Jesus. It was so sweet!

She asked Dan if we could do that again and it cracked me up when he said, "Yep, we'll do it again about this time next year!"

What a fun family tradition we started this year! I can't wait to see how much they will learn from this, how involved they will become, and how much more creative we get each year. :)

All About Dan...

Today is Dan's 30th birthday!
I thought I would share 30 random facts about him just for fun...from MY perspective! :)

1. While brushing his teeth, he stands straight up brushing with his right hand and places his left hand in his pocket (or on his hip if he doesn't have pockets.) EVERY TIME!

2. He hates to eat meat that has a bone in it because it makes his hands messy! 

3. He is better at scrap booking than I am! (That's sad to admit for both of us!)

4. He is honest...one of the most truthful people you'll ever meet!

5. He can spend HOURS watching fighting/self-defense videos on YouTube. Then he likes to "practice" what he learned on me...

6. He talks, walks, builds doors, has detailed conversations with people, takes care of our children, and does many other things IN HIS SLEEP! He has done some pretty funny things that I could embarrass him with at any time.

7. He makes up his own words to ANY song that's playing...and the word "fart" usually ends up in there somewhere.

8. He is addicted to soda...Code Red to be exact! He even gets headaches if he goes without it for a day or so.

9. He is into politics, talk radio and all that other boring stuff. He keeps me educated on it all since I don't follow any of it.

10. He worries about everything!

11. He is one of the hardest working people I know! He has an excellent work ethic and takes his job(s) seriously.

12. He is such a great Daddy and loves to wrestle, color, play, and spend quality time with our kids! He is a family man!!!!

13. He is very shy if he doesn't know someone. However, once he feels he knows you, he is so stinking funny and just a blast to be around!

14. He calls the shots around here, but he's very respectful in how he does things...and he always takes my opinion into consideration.

15. His nickname as a child was Chickenbone. He was pretty skinny!

16. He does not care to take the trash out! :)

17. He can play numerous instruments. The main ones are the guitar, bass, and drums...which he plays in the worship band at church. He says he wants to learn how to play the piano, but I've heard him play the intro to Van Halen's "Right Now" BY EAR! I'd say he can play the piano... 

18. He doesn't like cake! He's more of an ice cream, pie, brownie, rice krispie kind of guy.

19. One of his favorite things to do in the winter is lay on the heater with a blanket over him! He says he can remember laying on the heater with his Dad and it's cute how Trinity likes to crawl up next to him now.

20. He is an excellent preacher! I love to hear him preach!

21. He can do an impersonation for about anyone! It's usually pretty close to the actual person he is pretending to be...accent, facial expressions, body language and all! Ask him to do Mrs. Doubtfire...that's my FAVORITE!!!!

22. He loves to work out and has a full gym in our basement...we even have a leg press machine!
23. He never forgets a face! We'll be our in public and he will see someone he sold a door to 5 years ago. He can usually tell you a detailed story about his interaction with them too.
24. He is pretty handy, but he usually doesn't finish household projects for a while...and by a while I mean for a few YEARS! At least the majority of the work gets done at one time. In his defense, he is very busy and doesn't have a lot of free time.

25. He likes Egg Nog...yuck! 

26. Many people don't know this but Dan is an artist! He is very talented at drawing and used to win a lot of competitions he would enter in his younger years. He doesn't draw much anymore, but he's very good at it!

27. He is very humble! You will never hear him brag on himself. He usually makes himself sound pretty dull when he talks about himself, but he's actually good at anything he tries to do!

28. He usually doesn't like to be around big crowds. He would much rather be home than anywhere else.
29. He stays pretty calm when crazy things happen and thinks quick. I am not like that at all so it is impressive to me!

30. He eats a bagel with cream cheese and 4 slices of hard salomi for breakfast every morning! I make it for him everyday...accept when he's not working, then he likes his egg sandwich we invented.

I have many more useless fun facts about Dan, but I'll stop here so this isn't too long. I hope you learned something new about him! 

Happy 30th Birthday, Dan! I love you, Old Man!!!! :)

Trinity is 3...and has a Big Girl Room!

I cannot believe our daughter is 3 years old today! Time really does fly! She is such a joy to raise and we love her so much! It is so neat watching her turn into the little lady she is. She loves to draw and color, she plays with baby dolls and makes a great little mommy, and she is talking so clear now and cracks us up with funny things that just seem to pop out of nowhere.

One of her big birthday gifts was a new "big girl" room! We talked about it for a couple of weeks before the big renovation to build up her excitement. She spent 2 days and 1 night with her Grandma and Grandpa (thanks Kevin and Gina) and then came home to her new room!

Before she was born her room had been our spare bedroom and was painted blue. When we found out we were having a girl and started putting together a nursery, I begged Dan to paint her room pink. He refused and said that the room was a "sissy blue" so it would be just fine for our little girl. It's 3 years later and I still don't like it for her room! We were looking at paint samples and Dan was holding some purple samples in his hand as he asked Trinity what color she wanted her new room to be. I was so proud when she said "PINK!" He melted and caved in! He couldn't argue with her even if he wanted to...it is HER ROOM! :)

Here is our "big girl" room journey...with before and after pictures:

We did a lot of work in one day! I didn't capture pictures of everything, but it was sure an adventure!

To start with, Dan had to sand the walls and fill places with spackle before we could paint. It made a mess on the floor too...the first of many messes!

I rolled two coats of pink on the walls while Dan painted around the tricky parts the roller wouldn't reach. (He has a much more steady hand than I do.) He also painted a neat purple area at the top. This took us the majority of the day.

Once the paint was dry, I vacuumed and hung up the pictures. Dan painted a green strip in between the pink and purple...two more coats on that. While setting up the new room, we had some issues with the lighting as well! Why are these rooms so small and there is only 1 outlet that the light switch is hooked up to?

I finally went to pick up Nehemiah since he's not ready to spend the night away from home yet while Dan put together Trinity's new bookshelf and drilled it to the wall so no one would try to climb it and have it fall on them...just in case!

By this time, it was after midnight and we were just starting to put her big girl bed together. Her toddler bed converted to a full size. I was unaware that we HAD to put the foot board on it to keep the frame together so once it was up we discovered that we couldn't even walk around the room.

We had to rearrange everything!

Dan had to move the bookshelf too...which required him to undrill it from the wall and secure it to another wall. He also had to spackle the new hole he had put in the wall because of it. Fun, fun! We were both a little frustrated and tired at this point!

We finally got the room put together (well after 1am) and then I stayed up until almost 3am putting some finishing touches on it and cleaning things up. Talk about a long day...but well worth it!

The wall her bed was against BEFORE:

AFTER:

Wall with window BEFORE:

AFTER:

Wall with the closet BEFORE:

AFTER:

Entry way BEFORE:

AFTER:

Her reaction was priceless! Dan video taped it on our iPod but she was very quiet and just kept smiling so I didn't post it. He took pictures too but she was moving so much they came out really blurry. I did capture some after her bath as we were starting to settle down for bed though.

Bedtime story!

Out like a light!

She loves her big girl room and we're having a hard time getting her to come out of it sometimes! :)

Happy 3rd Birthday, Trinity!

I love you so much and I can't wait to see how much you change and grow over the next year!

Purina Farms Fun!

Purina Farms is an awesome place to go for a little day trip! It is FREE and we love that! Even though it's a small farm, they have some cool stuff to see and do. Dan and I had been there before, but this was the first time we went as a family. The kids loved it!

One of the interactive activities you can participate in is to milk a cow! None of us had a desire to do so...maybe when the kids get older that won't be as scary to try. Instead, we chose just to look at (and in some cases, pet) all the animals.

They have some neat stuff for kids to do too. Trinity loved crawling through all the tunnels. They also had rope swings to play on, little tractor tricycles to ride and a wagon ride touring the farm for the whole family.

I think one of the coolest things for Trinity was getting to pet the bunny rabbit! It didn't scare her like most animals do and she loved it!

She was only okay with petting the pigs because they were asleep!

The BEST part of Purina Farms (in my opinion) is the Dog Show! They have a dog show at 11am and 1pm. It is only about 20-30 minutes long, but it is worth going there for just to see this show!

Here we are getting ready for the Dog Show:

They even have a little swimming pool for the dogs and they had a competition to see what dog can go the furthest while catching a frisbee...so cool!

They play loud, fun music while they do tricks with numerous dogs! The whole crowd was clapping and laughing the whole time.

(I think my Sister-in-law would be a great trainer here!!!!)

They also had some nice scenery to get some good pictures taken. Trinity was more amused watching the fish swim than getting her picture taken though. She actually wanted to pet it! 

We ended our visit petting some dogs and watching cats play and lounge around.

We were there about 2 hours and it was a lot of fun! They have a gift shop and food you can purchase, but we decided to be cheap and not spend any money. I love having that option!

If you haven't visited Purina Farms before (or if it's just been a while), I highly recommend it! Check out http://www.purina.com/purina-farms/purinafarms.aspx for more information.

Lobster Bisque Recipe Failure...

Lately it feels like I make the same meals over and over again. It has inspired me to try out some new recipes to get some variety in our dinner menu. I do not claim to be a great cook, but I can follow a recipe...

One of Dan's best friends got married a few years ago. At his reception, they served Lobster Bisque! It was so wonderful! Dan will sometimes say, "You know what sounds good? A nice big bowl of Lobster Bisque!" Since I've been searching for "new" food that Dan will like, I decided I would give it a try...and I FAILED!

I got this recipe off http://www.allrecipes.com/. I usually find good ones on this website, but not this one! I thought about not giving the recipe out because I know it's awful, but maybe some of you can tell me what is wrong with this... I should have known since it states it will be ready in 20 minutes!

Ingredients:

*1 cup chicken broth

*2 medium slices of onion

*2 tablespoons butter

*2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

*2 cups milk

*1/2 teaspoon salt

*1 lb cooked and cubed lobster meat

*1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

*1 pinch ground cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. In a small frying pan place 1/4 cup chicken broth and the onion. Cook over a low heat for 5-7 minutes.

2. In a medium size pot over medium heat melt the butter. Slowly whisk in flour. Whisk until a creamy mixture is created.

3. Gradually pour in broth, whisking constantly. Whisk in milk, salt, onion, lobster meat, Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper. Heat until soup is almost boiling. Do not boil the soup as the milk will curdle when boiled.

Okay, so that is it. I had a few things that may have contributed to my failed attempt. One was that I bought imitation lobster meat. The seafood guy at the super market said that lobster tails were $9 each and I would need about 3 of them for this recipe. That is way too much to spend on one meal...and that's only 1 ingredient in the meal! I also did not add any cayenne pepper, but it only called for a pinch and I substituted for freshly ground pepper.

I even added crackers to mine...still no good!

My main problem with this was the huge chunks of "lobster meat." I knew it was imitation and it just kind of grossed me out. The taste was a little bland but it had a horrible after-taste that lasted the rest of the night. Dan said he didn't like how soupy it was. The lobster bisque he had first tasted and fell in love with was thick and creamy. (Thank you Ryan and Sarah for setting the standard so high!)

Needless to say, Dan and I had a good laugh about this and I ended up at DQ to get food and blizzards! I told Trinity to tell Dan that "Mommy's sorry dinner stunk" and she told him, "Mommy's dinner stunk!" We laughed so hard!

Dan tried to eat just the lobster meat since we paid for it. He's such a good sport! I threw the rest of mine out!

I may try this again sometime...only after I do a little more research on it and hear some good tips from people that have actually made good seafood before.

So, anyone have any tips (or a good recipe) on how to make a good Lobster Bisque?