birthdays

my family had my dad's side of the fam over for some super yummy food and presents.  we were semi-celebrating my old bday and of course celebrating my little sisters 21st birthday!  holy moly!  how is she so old?  lucky for me her requested meal is one of my absoulte faves so i ate my weight in roast & mashed potatoes and enjoyed the company of my wonderful family.

chels, i'm so proud of the lovely woman that you've become and couldn't be more thankful for the work that the Lord has done in & through your life.  i pray that your heart would be His all the your days.  i'm so glad you're my sister!

benny & i took a few pics of the day...i think we still need some serious help with our lighting and composition skills :)  someday...someday.

ben refusing to smile normally at me for a picture.

and nick played us a concert.  treat!

today i'm thankful for full life and people to celebrate it with.

christening our kitchenaid

we did it!  for the first time ever we used our glorious, oh so very pretty, kitchenaid mixer.  my way way way too generous great uncle bought us this for our wedding and i suppose that well, 1. i never really cook [yet] and 2. its so pretty i never wanted to dirty it up.  but it's there for the using so we better get to it.

the last time we were up in nky ben saw his childhood cookbook sitting out which just so happens to contain the recipe for some of the "best in the world," crazy delicious, chocolate chip cookies.  we brought it back to town with us & ben was all hyped about getting the ingredients together and whipping these up.  it may have literally been the first thing he said in the morning when he woke up before 8am on saturday.  well, that and that he wanted to take me to winchell's [our new weekend tradition] & that he wanted a new uk crewneck because he shrank his.  mmmm cookies!

he wanted to triple the recipe but in the end we thought better of it and made just 60.  yes JUST 60.  i know...how will we ever survive with just 60 cookies?

there she is :) 

i'm sure there was a far superior angle for picture taking but it was hard to get in there with all the mixing going on and ben being a baker.  i'll work on that for next time.  [yes there will be a next time]

he won't like that i'm telling you this but he was being real particular [or persnickety as my papal would say] about how to make these treats.  eventually i just had to leave the kitchen and lend my moral support from then den.  god forbid i don't stir something right.

::in the making::

60 cookies taste pretty great!  i'd share with you but i'm pretty sure they're gone.

what else would you suggest for us to try  in there?  remember that there's just two of us normally. 

what do you mix up in your home!?

is this a trick?

obviously i'm a few weeks behind but i couldn't keep these to myself - i had to share some halloweeny pics.

this is my little brother, snookie [aka snickie].  yes he is dressed as a trashy jersey shore girl.  it was absolutely hysterical to watch him walk down the street.  little jon jon had no idea it was nick under there.

little leah was a kitty cat, full of meows.

and jon jon was buzz lightyear, the vampire with a light up costume, wings and fangs for teeth!

i had to skip out on the family time, chili & grilled cheeses.  it was a monday night and of course we had club.  woot woot!  my camera had died so i stole these from ang & her phone.  that's me...the ghost.  and look how awesome some of the girls are!

my blurry little team.  micah is ben, kaitlin is ang, ben is ben, angie is kaitlin, dylan is dylan and me and em are ghosts.  ghosts with hightops. duh. 

my life [seemingly a weekly series]

i really want to post but posting without pictures is no fun.  especially when i have the pics i want to post & have just failed to get them out of the camera and on to my computer.  [ #whitegirlproblems ].  i suppose all i can do is this...and then just feel satisified that on nov. 8th i posted something. 

good for me.

so last week was eventful and full.  instead of telling you anything of importantance i'll leave you with this.  my luck.  errr my misfortune.  i forgot both my pin number and my cell phone number both in one week.

i've easily had the same pin for oh...more than 3 years and my cell phone?  yep, over 10.  i feel like i have all the right numbers but maybe they're scrabbled.  i'm not sure.  who just starts randomly forgetting things - never to be remembered again.  after someone told me my phone number it did sound familar [duh!] but my pin!?  no one knows but me.  who will tell it to me?  oh my, i'm in trouble.  when i called the number on the back of my card guess what they said, "enter your pin"  it's like the bank is mocking me.  next thing you know i'll forget where i live or how to get to work.  i basically need a caregiver.

happy tuesday!

does anyone want to talk about this?

me & rachel in high school.  seriously?

cory sent this little gem through cyberspace and well, it totally made my day.

first annual [i hope] oktoberfest

happy monday friends.  i hope you had a wonderful weekend full of rest and friends and fun.  we most certainly did.  it may have done me some good to do a little more 'work' than what i did but oh well.  friday ben & i ended up on a date, dinner & a movie.  the usual.  time to talk, time for entertainment.  we saw paranormal activity 3.  it's halloween what can i say?

saturday was some of our favorite things all rolled into one day.  we i slept in, we ate breakfast together, lounged around and then finally got ready for the day when the margraves rolled into town.  from there we headed over to the poston's for what would be the first ever oktoberfest.  my hope is that the poston's loved it so much that we could have one every year. [yes yes?]  they did such a sweet job turning their backyard into the most perfect fall getaway.  giant long table [big enough for all our friends], twinkle lights, buntings, tree canopy, friends, babies, tons of yummy food, campfire....it was awesome.  i may have taken far too many pictures and then proceeded to upload them all to blogger.  i may have.

ben riding moose.  don't worry anne, no animals were harmed in the making of this picture.

you're welcome cory

poston's-

thank you so much for planning, inviting, hosting & decorating for oktoberfest and on top of that feeding all of our friends.  thank you for opening your home [and yard] and blessing us with your friendship and hospitality.  we love you all dearly & are so thankful that we get to celebrate life with you all.  the good, the bad...the oktoberfest -all of it.

j&b

more pics [here]

behind the times

so i wrote this post ohhh like a month or more ago i think and just never hit publish.  weird.  so for a trip down memory lane here's just a little update with some here and there's.  more current info in teal.  and fair warning this is all real random.

made these from a box but look how pretty:

i will pin anything with 'free printable' attached to it.  if you want me to come to your site and stick around, a "free printable" is just what i need.  if you see anything good send it on my way.  and if you're looking for some yourself you can steal mine {HERE}.

saturday was awesome [who knows what saturday this really was].  i slept in {woot woot} hung out with the hubs, and then some of our best friends came over to visit and to help us figure out what to do with our terrible blank walls.  i scrounged up all of my frames from around the house and laid them on the floor.  rach helped lay them out.  after tracing the frames on newspaper & arranging them on the wall i think we have something really good going.  right now the frames are drying out in the garage after some good ol' spray painting. [update: they are actually hanging on the wall now.  all my friends are amazed that something is hanging on my walls....however, they are still without pictures because i'm super indecisive.  whomp whomp.  i'll take & post a pic soon, maybe even if they're still empty.  that's real life for us i guess.]

laying them on the ground was a good idea, tracing them on newspaper to pre-place on the wall [with tape]was also a good idea.  however we didn't label our newpaper so we got worried that we wouldn't know what went where since some of the frames are similar.  so...i snapped this pic so we'd remember the order.  turns out...thats a good plan too because we were totally confused without it.

we made dinner twice in 1 week [ahhh this happened again this week, i told you we're improving.  i shall call that a miracle]

i figured out my second greatest fear {that doesn't have eternal consequence}.  being the couple in the restaurant who never speaks.  do you ever see them?  looks like they're out on a 'date' and neither one says anything the whole meal.  it makes me so sad.  benny, i hope our dates are always full & deep & fun & lively.  i never want to be that couple.

and back to reality...it's friday!  in real life.  right now.  i'm so excited about that.  this week has kind of flown by and i have no idea where it went. 
--thank you for your prayers for our meeting last night.  i'm excited about the truths that we were able to lay out with our mormon friends.
--tonight i'm hoping to do some haunted house hunting or at least a scary movie night [like hocus pocus wooooooooo...ghost sound] with hs friends
--tomorrow we get to have a blasty blast party with all our friends, homemade oktoberfest here we come.  i'm way hyped!
--we're currently puppy parents.  just for the week. the furballs are running the house.  literally running all over the place and also like running the show.  they do what they want.  and awesome sidenote: yesterday morning i took the pups outside before i left for work.  they saw a squirrel on the roof and our black furbaby ran over to the air conditioning unit and tried to jump on top of it in order to get to the roof.  1.  he couldn't even make it on top of an ac unit, he's tiny and it's less that 3' tall  2. our roof is way higher than 3' even if he could get up there.  hilarious.  our pups are wild. 
--i keep seeing ladies in really cute outfits on blogs etc. who say things like "belt: thrifted"  i've been looking through old belts for months and haven't ever found anything good.  c'mon goodwill - somebody give me your old, awesome belt! 
--and not to be a complete weirdo but i really enjoyed this sermon on who God is and the reality of Hell [vs. common misconceptions].  i really think you'd be encouraged by it.  listen here.  it's tim keller.

my friends have babies & i love 'em

so lib came to town & of course we took advantage.  some girlfriends [and their babes] all piled into the poston's for a long-due visit.  contrary to the story these pics tell...there were adult friends there and not just babies.  but gosh they're so dang cute.

rach i thought you'd like this one...baaaahahahaha

cheeeeeeeese [that's what he's saying]. 

figuring out how to be friends

sharing is hard.

you're welcome holly.

it was a really sweet night filled with laughter, life, food and of course...babies

more pics here