♥ Valentine's Day ♥

I love, Love, LOVE Valentine's Day!!!  ♥  I love romance and hearts and all things mushy!  ♥  Almost every book I read is a romance novel!  ♥  I tear up every time I see a man on one knee proposing to his love! ♥ I watch 'The Notebook' every time it's on TV!  ♥  I look forward to Matt being romantic on Valentine's Day!  ♥  He's pretty creative and has a romantic soul!  ♥  This year he exceeded my expectations!  ♥ He gave me a box with a piece of concrete in it.  I know that doesn't sound romantic, but it's an actual piece of our history together! He gave me a piece of the movie theater where we had our first date...way back on April 4, 1985. (We were still babies.)  He remembers all of our milestones AND the date of each milestone.  That makes my heart flutter!  (And it's awesome for scrapbooking because I'm horrible with dates.) To me, it's the well-thought homemade gifts from the heart that mean the most.  I made him CDs of the #1 rock songs on Valentine's Day since our first Valentine's Day together.  (He likes rock music, not pop, so this way he can listen to his music when he wants and I'm not switching the station to my music.)  I also made him a cute little sign he could hang in his office.  I hope your Valentine's Day made your heart flutter like mine did!   ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

♥ Thanks, Pinterest, for the inspiration! ♥

We went out to dinner the night before and went shopping. I got new silverware. Happy Valentine's Day to me! (Most women want jewelry.  I'm practical and wanted  new silverware. After 25 years, it's amazing how much of your silverware is missing!)

It was actually more expensive to order replacement
pieces than to just buy a new set!

After we exchanged gifts, I made a lot of goodies for us to enjoy on Valentine's Day.  I started by making caramel cinnamon vanilla heart-shaped waffles and bacon for breakfast.  

Yuck.. He likes his bacon
barely cooked.  Yuck.
Bacon should be crispy.

 Lunch was a heart-shaped homemade pizza...with homemade pizza sauce.

Dinner was Italian Beef sandwiches and onion strings, but I couldn't make those into a heart shape.  

For Matt's chocolate sweet tooth, I made these cute little cookies.  

(Thanks, Pioneer Woman!)

On a side note, Keaton swung by with Autumn on Sunday to borrow our snowshoes...and a hat.  He ran in the house to say a quick hi to us before he left and told us he was surprising Autumn with a snowshoeing adventure and she was waiting blindfolded in the car. He wanted to grab a hat for her since she only had a headband and he didn't want her to be cold. Awwww!  We watched them back out of the driveway and laughed at poor Autumn sitting in the car, wearing a blindfold.  We were just hoping they weren't pulled over after someone reported a kidnapped woman in his front seat!

Snowshoe Saturday

Saturday was a gorgeous day to do a little snowshoeing!

Snow Day!

Even though I don't have a little one at home any more, I still LOVE snow days!  We got about 8-10 inches of snow last night and everything is cancelled.  The three adorable and super sweet kiddos across the street came to shovel this morning. I ran them out some peanut butter cookies and hot chocolate.  It's sooooooo much fun having little ones around again!  (Plus, if I don't have the cookies around here then I can't eat them!)

The super huge marshmallows were a big hit!

In other news, I'm LOVING my new slippers.  Not only are they super warm, they also add sparkle to the room!

Oh, and I finally picked out tile for the back splash in the kitchen.  We'll see how the weekend pans out...and see how much more snow we'll be shoveling!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Another birthday...another year turning 29!  We went to an area grill house to celebrate my birthday with Keaton and Autumn.  The restaurant was featured on The Travel Channel and is among the top 10 steak houses in the state.  (They enjoyed their steak.  I, of course, had chicken!)

On Friday night, we had a great time with friends at a tapas restaurant...where they prepare the guacamole right at the table and offered half-off margaritas. That's my kind of restaurant!  Aye carumba!!

Happy 2016!

December flew by.  We participated in an Ugly Sweater 5K Walk/Run in our new little hometown. (Since I don't like to sweat, can you guess which one we did?)  We joined the throngs of Star Wars fans and saw the latest movie in our little hometown theater.  (It's an old historic building which was originally a horse livery in the late1800s.  It became a vaudeville theater in 1919 and then restored in the 1930s in the Art Deco style and made into a movie theater. It's really pretty!) We blinked and the week of Christmas was upon us.  I had a little bug and was not feeling great earlier in the week. Keaton had a bigger bug and had to cancel our Christmas Eve plans and dinner.  Matt and I ended up snacking a lot and watching a lot of movies.  We played games with the older kids in my family and probably shed a couple of pounds from laughing so hard. (If you've never played 'Cards Against Humanity', you're missing out on a hilarious, naughty, terrible, bawdy, horrible, politically-incorrect, gut-wrenching funny game! It's not for the faint of heart.  We wouldn't allow our mother in the room...it's that bad.  But, I have a dark, twisted sense of humor and know my sisters do too.  We were happy to find my nephews have inherited our dark sense of humor.  I'm also pleased that Matt has embraced the naughtiness and has come to the dark side too.)   We enjoyed an abbreviated post-Christmas celebration with Keaton and Autumn. We sure did miss our sweet Cyrus helping us unwrap gifts, though. :-(  We did get off the couch to donate to the casino and did our part to help the economy with after-Christmas shopping in South Haven, Saugatuck, and the outlet mall where we found some great deals!  I was absolutely THRILLED to make a good-sized dent in the stock at Kirkland's...twice!!

We happily said goodbye to 2015 with dinner and drinks with our good friends on Thursday night.  (On a side note, I found a new drink called a Cherry Temple that was fabulous!)  We're hoping 2016 is a much happier year for us all!

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

Big Buckeye

Someone sure is spoiled and has the best mom in the world for making him a ginormous buckeye!

The Nutcracker

We went to see The Nutcracker on Saturday.  I'm happy to report that Matt stayed awake through the entire performance.  ;-)

Merry Christmas, Cyrus!

Friends

We're fortunate enough to have some very special friends in our lives.  We're so thankful for their friendship and for all the fun we've had with them over the years.  Plus, we have to keep them close to us...they know too much.  ;-)

Missing My Sink

We're refinishing the kitchen counter tops.  This means that we've been without a sink for 10 days.  10. Long. Days.  You really don't know how much you take something for granted until  it's gone.  It's been quite a challenge being without water in the kitchen, but the end of the finish line is in sight. Hopefully Matt will install the new sink and garbage disposal tomorrow!  If not, I'm putting restaurant gift cards on my Christmas list!!

Sneak preview of the amazing before and after project!

New View

New month, new blog header...and probably a new hair color.

These picture were taken by me looking out from our backyard. Having this view makes doing the dishes SO much easier!

Happy Halloween!

While grocery shopping last week, I found a tiara and didn't hesitate to throw it in my shopping cart.  I've decided to wear it every day to make all household chores more fun.  Maybe this will make scrubbing the toilets glamorous!

We really do have cupboard doors for the kitchen...
hopefully this week!

For the Halloween festivities at work, Matt dressed as Caitlyn Jenner.  He joined other co-workers dressed as the Kardashians.  They like all like looked like fabulous!

Romeo and Juliet...25 years later.  I know that's not how the story is supposed to go, but I'm a sucker for happy endings!  Happy Halloween!!

Happy 24th, Keaton!

It's the strangest thing...Keaton turned 24 today while I remain 29!  ;-)

We just got back from a birthday dinner at a hibachi grill.  Yum!  Keaton enjoyed his birthday presents. Matt enjoyed some wine from the chef.  I enjoyed not cooking tonight.  Happy birthday to our favorite son!!

(And it just wouldn't be a birthday celebration without a birthday video. Enjoy!)

Pumpkin Carving 2015

We took a break from working on the house (and raking leaves) to go camping over the weekend with our friends.  It was a chilly, windy, drizzly day on Saturday...a perfect day to carve pumpkins and roast pumpkin seeds over a fire.  It was nice to wake up to a gorgeous, sunny day on Sunday...a perfect day for a long bike ride to enjoy some beautiful fall colors around Yankee Springs!

The princess pumpkin had to be on a throne.
Sadly, all I had was this ugly bucket.  
Note to self:  get pink bucket for camper!

Matt's pumpkin was awesome when lit, despite the rain.
My pumpkin was pulled out of the first few sprinkles.
Princesses do not get wet!

Our Town

We're beginning to feel more 'at home' in our new house...and in our new town.  For a while, it honestly felt like we were on vacation or visiting someone else's house.  But, the more we get acclimated to the new community and continue to update the house to make it feel like ours, the more it's starting to feel like home. I can't wait to get everything painted and updated so I can start to hang pictures and put out knick knacks and get rid of more boxes!!!

We went downtown one night for Octoberfest.  We enjoyed a drink and the live entertainment...and a spot under the outdoor heater!  I love the pretty bridge with changing lights.

Matt is enthusiastic about supporting the local school district.  He wore the school mascot costume during the neighborhood elementary school's walk-a-thon and helped to make the event a roaring success!

Corn Maze Adventure

Last weekend we took a break from working around the house and visited a corn maze with our friends. It was fun to be kids again and find our way out of the corn.  We were sure to visit the sling-shot gourd area and I was pleasantly surprised that I had pretty good aim and actually could hit the side of a barn!

Luckily, we didn't see any kids from 'Children of the Corn'.

Whew...we made it!