Celebrating St. Patrick!

Yesterday was actually a beautiful day here. Okay, maybe it was only in the 30's, but it was sunny and sure felt nice compared to the long winter we've had. Anyway, so we decided to make the most of it and met up with a few friends to head down to the St. Patty's day parade. This is the first time I've been able to enjoy the parade with Steve as normally he's marching in it for the hurling team. I'm secretly glad he's taking this year off hurling and will play softball instead. It's so much safer.

Anyway, the parade was great and the kids had fun. They really liked this little guy

It was nice and so needed to just get out and get some fresh air. It seems like all 3 of us have been sick a lot lately, so we've been stuck inside and I've had some major cabin fever. Spring is almost here!

On to other news, I found a great deal on what my friend Sarah likes to call the "cadillac of double strollers" this weekend. My relentless searching on craigslist finally paid off and it feels good to have a stroller marked off on the "need" list. It's so nice that we really don't have to buy much for this baby and I'm so glad that all of our gear and nursery theme is neutral and able to be used again whether it's a boy or girl. We find out next week what we're having, so we may have some shopping trips in store for some girl clothes. I really kinda think it's a girl, but I guess we'll wait and see!

I'll leave you with this cute little picture. I realized yesterday that we don't really have any green for our little guy to wear. Luckily, I remembered that we had this cute little hat that my brother sent Asher for Christmas. He looked festive enough, right?

Halloween

We celebrated twice this year - once in St. Louis and once in Madison.

We actually didn't even get a costume for Asher because we didn't think we'd be home for Halloween, but Missy happened to have 2 costumes that she bought on clearance after Halloween last year that wouldn't fit any of her kids, so we decided to dress Asher up in those and I'm so glad we did!

On Saturday he was a horse, all dressed up for the annual harvest party that our old church in St. Louis throws every year. We only stopped by for a few minutes, but the little horse looked cute!

We left early Sunday morning, very ready to get back to Madison and made it home just in time for all the trick or treaters to show up! I think this is the first year we've actually been home to hand out candy on Halloween since we've moved here, so we weren't sure exactly how many kids would stop by, but we actually had quite a few!

This time Asher was a Zebra and SOOOO cute!

sitting by the door waiting for the little trick or treaters to show up

getting wiggy with it!

Steve got inspired to go through our "halloween box" the other day. I vaguely remember us getting these wigs on clearance from Target last year after halloween. The laughs we had trying on these wigs was well worth the $1.00 we spent on them!

Twilight, Cardinals and Nesting!

I've been neglecting the ol' blog lately. We've just been super busy these past few weeks and I haven't really had time to do laundry let alone blog.

The weekend was good. We've literally had something going on every single night for the past 3 weeks, so Friday night Steve and I decided to take a night off and lock ourselves in the house and ignore the world. It was very much needed! We caught up on last weeks episode of Lost and then watched Twilight. I'm not normally one to want to veg out in front of the TV for all that long, but I really just needed a night of nothingness.

I'm ashamed to say that we totally got hooked on Twilight! Yes, it's more of a flick that teeny boppers get into because they think that Robert Pattison is so hot, and I normally don't like these kinds of movies, but somehow it totally sucked me in and now I can't wait to see the 3rd movie when it comes out.

Saturday we headed to Milwaukee to cheer on our Cardinals! Our boy still may be in the womb, but we're really hoping that we can influence him to cheer for the Cardinals early on! One thing I love about Wisconsin is the tailgating, we usually have just as much fun tailgating as we do at the game. This game was no exception as we absolutely kicked the Brewer's butts! I'm glad we won, but the game was actually quite boring because we just beat them that bad.

We had a good time though and it was good to do something fun!

Poor Ryan opted to stand in the back behind my extremely large stomach to help hide his Brewer's shirt. Needless to say his trash talking of the Cardinals stopped somewhere between the 1st and 2nd inning.

The next few weeks should continue to be busy. Things should slow down just a little bit in May and then June 1st will be here before we know it!

I'm getting so excited to go on maternity leave and catch up on some sleep before our baby boy gets here. We still have lots and lots to do to get ready (all you have to do is take a look at all the boxes, computer equipment, guitars, amps and keyboards in the baby's room to understand) for our little guys arrival and I'm so excited to get started on that process.

I have been nesting like crazy lately. While Steve was away at hurling practice on Sunday I completely rearranged the living room furniture 3 different times, only to get exhausted and realize that it really worked best the way I had it originally. At that point I gave up and figured I'd let Steve put everything back together once he got home. I have been getting so frustrated with wanting to get our house in order and knowing that I can't really get started on much until the end of May due to our current living situation. This nesting is driving me crazy and I hope that once the time comes to get everything in order in our little guy's room I have enough energy to do it all!

In the meantime, since I can't do much at the house I have been cleaning and organizing our office. My boss even caught me mopping the bathroom floors last week - totally and completely not even remotely part of my job description, but I just gotta get this nesting out of my system somewhere!

Speaking of nesting, I think I hear some filing calling my name....

Bangers, Mash, and a Dishwasher....

We have a fun St. Patty's day. We had a party and made some Bangers & Mash for the first time and it turned out really good! What can I say, my husband is a great cook!

We also doubled our St. Patty's day festivities with a "dishwasher warming" party! Yep, after sitting in our living room for 3 weeks we learned two things:

1. A dishwasher is really better when it's installed in a kitchen, and doesn't make for a very attractive end table while it sits in a cardboard box in the living room.
2. It's incredibly amazing to just throw dishes in the dishwasher and let it work it's magic!

Seriously, I think Jeff thought I was a maniac after he finished installing it and I couldn't wait to dirty up some dishes to throw in there. Luckily, with our St. Patty's day festivities I got my opportunity. No paper plates for this party....we went all out and used our finest Ikea dishes set!

I don't miss my cabinet space one bit...okay, maybe I miss the space but the dishwasher is totally worth it. I also am amazed at how large our living room looks now that the dishwasher is out of it!
Everything is good, life is happy!

All work and a little play...

Our weekend was filled with work and play. Friday night we had Nich & Sarah over for dinner and watched "The Proposal." Such a funny movie and if your a fan of Oscar from The Office prepare to laugh!
We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to go pick up our new floors and get to work. Steve knocked out a bunch of the family room and I got most of the downstairs bathroom painted and new mirrors and artwork hung.


Later on in the afternoon we paid a visit to our first Wisconsin Corn Maze! So fun!
Schuster's Playtime Farm is where it's at! The corn maze was supposed to take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half and we made in to the end in about an hour. We also went on a hayride, watched some pig races and then had a bonfire. The guys had a good time being guys, playing on the playground (which I think was really supposed to be for kids) and wrestling with each other.
Wisconsin is such a fun place in the fall!
After the fun stopped Steve and I went home to stay up late and work more on the house.
Besides church on Sunday the entire rest of our weekend consisted of working on that darn basement. I will be so glad once this project is done.
I know I've said it before, but I truly believe with all of my heart that I have the best husband in the entire world. He has been working so hard to put our new floors in and has had to deal with a lot of mishaps along the way (let's just say we found some surprises under the 2 layers of linoleum that we've had to tear up from underneath the washer and dryer). He has been working non-stop all weekend and since he came home from work yesterday only to take a break for community group last night. I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man.
Tomorrow is Steve's birthday so I'm taking him out to dinner for a much needed night off. Just a few more pictures of my sweet husband...

Just For Fun....

Perkins tagged us on facebook in these photos from his wedding and they made me laugh. Good times!



These two are always hilarious when they get together. I think those pants of Steve's need to go to Goodwill. I didn't realize how huge they were on him till I saw this picture.

We had SUCH a busy weekend. It was fun having my mom here, but so exhausting! We were busy non-stop. When I woke up this morning to take her back to the airport (at 5:30 am) I felt like I was in a trance.
My mom was able to get a good feel the for the city while she was here and loved it. It helped that the weather has been absolutely perfect for the last 5 days.
Enjoying the Beer Garden at Capital Brewery on the last night it was open for the season.
We got out and went to a lot of Madison events while we were here. Saturday was a really busy day. We started out at the Farmer's Market and then took Mom for a tour of the Capitol. I had never been up to the observation deck and it has amazing views of the city, so that was kind of cool. We also ran into a friend of mine while we were at the Capitol. I didn't know it, but in his spare time he works part time at the Capitol as a security guard. He's lived in Wisconsin his entire life and thinks Madison is the greatest city ever, so he was thrilled to educate my mom about the city. He also took us on a secret tour up to the very top of the Capitol, which was very cool.
Up on the observation deck, mom was a little squished!
Sunday we took mom to church and then had lunch with some friends that were in town from St. Louis afterwards. We had Chris & Christina over for dinner so Mom could meet Liliana for the first time. Mom had a blast playing with her!

Monday rolled around and it was time to party! Some of our friends from Madison and our friends from St. Louis all met up at our house and then we headed to Milwaukee to see the Brewers take on the Cardinals. We went up early to tailgate and it was so much fun! We had about 14 in our group and only 3 were rooting for the Brewers!
Don't know what's up with the look on my face, I guess it was cause I was hanging out with the wrong fans (love you Nich & Sarah)!
I was so surprised to see how many other Cardinal's fans were at the game, literally probably about 1/3 of the people at the game were rooting for the good ol' Cards, which made me very happy! Check out Steve's HIDEOUS sunglasses! He refuses to get rid of these things!
All in all it was a great weekend, although it left me feeling exhausted and unprepared for the week ahead of me. My mom had a great time, so that's all that really mattered to me! We took lots of pictures that are all on my Flickr page for your viewing pleasure!
I've loved having so many visitors this summer, but I am ready for a little rest. Literally almost every weekend this summer we've either had someone here visiting us or been somewhere visiting them and it really is quite exhausting! As far as I know we won't have anyone coming to visit for at least another month, so hopefully that will give us some time to recuperate from our busy summer and get back into the swing of life a little bit.

Camping Fun!

We had a great weekend in the great outdoors! Friday after work we headed up to Devil's Lake State Park to meet up with everyone for a weekend of camping. I love camping, but unfortunately don't get to go very often, so I've been really looking forward to this weekend.

Not the best picture of us, but what can I say, we were hiking!
Saturday morning we woke up to Pat cooking a gigantic breakfast of french toast and sausages and then we headed off for a beautiful hike. We hiked up to Balanced Rock - a very steep hike, but very well worth it for the gorgeous views from the top of the mountain. We opted to take the longer route back down and headed to the East Bluff trail - it was such a beautiful hike and a nice trail. We stopped a few times to check out some of the cool rock formations (yes, I am that geek that gets a kick out of looking at rock formations) and plants.It was neat having Jarod (aka "Mr. DNR") with us to educate us on all the different plants and conservation efforts going on in the area. I love that he has such a passion for what he does.

The guys stopping to see how high up we were
After we made it back to our campsite we were pooped and spent the rest of the day hanging out. We took a little snooze in the hammock and then played a little volleyball before dinner.
Chris, Christina and Nich and Sarah came up to join us for the evening and we spent another night sitting around the campfire, having fun, chatting it up and eating Smores!

Sunday morning we had an extra special surprise, we were just getting ready to sit down to yet another huge breakfast (of course made by Pat) when a mini-van pulled into our campsite and a lady got out yelling something about wanting a free breakfast. I was shocked when I looked up and saw Alma! Apparently she had been talking to Julie for weeks and had planned to surprise us. It was so good to see her, Brad and the kids. We hung out with them for the afternoon and then parted ways. They're going to vacation in Wisconsin Dells for a few days and will come back and stay with us toward the end of the week for a few days.
I just love having friends from St. Louis come visit us...even more then I love going back home to visit them!
It was a fun weekend and so good to get away. I can't say that I was able to completely forget about all the things that I needed to be taking care of around the house or the stresses of some of the stuff going on at work, but it was kind of nice to be forced to get away from it all.
Next weekend we'll actually be in town for the first weekend in what feels like forever. I'm really looking forward to waking up in my own bed on Saturday morning and enjoying my morning coffee.

We had such a great weekend - so full of fun! Friday night Steve surprised me with tickets to see Eric Hutchinson at the Majestic. I hear him all the time on my XM (The Spectrum, Channel 45 - best channel on XM) and every time he comes on I mention to Steve how much I like him and want to get his CD. He's not very well known, but he's very talented. Anyway...the concert was awesome and I was so blessed that my sweet husband surprised me with tickets. We finally ended up getting that CD as well.
Saturday came and I got to surprise Steve! One of my clients gave me some movie vouchers for one of the cinema's here, so I took Steve to see Wolverine. I was actually surprised that it was still in theatres as it seems like it was months ago when it came out. I know Steve has really been wanting to see it, but hadn't mentioned it - because we've been trying to save money and also because he knows I'd rather be doing something a little more social than sitting at a movie theatre. Anyway, he LOVES the X-Men series and read comic books as a child, so going to see Wolverine definitely filled his love tank - which made me super happy to see him so happy. We hung out down at the union on Saturday night and it was so beautiful outside and a perfect night to people watch and listen to music.
Sunday came and I got surprised - again! Chris, Christina and Steve surprised me with a trip out to New Glarus' brand new hilltop brewery that just opened. It was such a beautiful drive out there and their new facility was gorgeous! I also discovered that I like their "Fat Squirrel" beer a lot better than the "Spotted Cow" that they're so well known for. In fact, it may be one of my new favorites. Still though, nothing beats a NewCastle.

It was really a great weekend. I've been feeling a little down lately because I'm going to turn the big 30 on Saturday and for some reason it's really been bumming me out. It was so nice to get out and have some fun and do something special and I'm so grateful for a wonderful husband and super sweet friends!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We've been really busy and I haven't had much time, motivation or energy to blog lately.
We had a fun weekend. We decided it was time to get involved in our neighborhood and went to the neighborhood association meeting on Saturday morning. It was good to meet some of the folks that are making decisions about what's happening in our neighborhood as well as find out how we can get involved.

The weather here was GORGEOUS so we decided that Saturday afternoon would be a good time to take flat Paige out for some fun. Who is flat Paige you may wonder? She's a new acquaintance of ours. We got her in the mail from our friends daughter back in St. Louis. Our little friend Paige is doing a school project that requires she mail a flat version of herself to an out of town friend and have them take pictures of her "flat self" out and about exploring the area. We then have to journal about the adventure that flat Paige is going on and send travel brochures and pictures back to her teacher so the class can learn about the area that flat Paige explored. Steve and I are having a lot of fun with this little project.

On Saturday we took flat Paige up to the capitol and down around State Street. Yesterday we handed her off to our friends Pat & Julie for the week as they're going to take her to Wisconsin Dells and Green Bay for some more adventures.
Steve and I needed to get out and have a little fun and this was just a perfect excuse! We want to make it a great school project for Paige so we're going all out!

Sunday afternoon was the St. Patty's day celebration here in Madison. Steve marched in the big parade with his hurling team and I met up with my friend Dayla to hang out down on the square and watch the parade.

It was such a perfect day! Our neighborhood is starting to come alive now the weather is nice and we love it! We love having a park right across the street and Steve & I have been playing lots of basketball in the park and taking lots of walks around the neighborhood. I really hope that spring is finally here! All this gross weather kind of had me down and its amazing how a little sunshine has completely lifted my spirits!

I'm really starting to like Wisconsin...

Weekend fun,,,,

We finally had a weekend that I can feel good about! Not only did we make a lot of headway on our house (moved a whole pickup truck full of stuff out, Steve finished up the flooring, I picked out a new paint color for the bathroom and I got our whole bedroom organized and ready to go) but we were able to squeeze a little fun in too!
Steve had a bunch of his guy friends over on Friday night to play rockband and when I came home at 12:30 they were still going strong. It looks like a fun game!

Saturday we spent most of the day working on the house and then yesterday Hannah turned 3! I can't believe she's 3 already. Missy had planned a pink tea party for her. All the guests were asked to wear pink (you can see from the pics that my husband didn't oblige, and I didn't do so well either) and Missy had the whole house decorated in a pink theme. It was really cute and Hannah loved every minute of it! She's turning into such a little diva! This is how she decorated her uncle Steve:


It's been a lot fun watching Hannah grow. Steve & started dating just a week after she was born, and then got married the day before our 1 year anniversary, so it's fun to see Hannah's life as she grows and to be able to correlate Steve & I's life together on the same timeline.
I'm getting much better, but I'm still really having a hard time with moving away from Dale & Missy and their kids. It's been so great to be able to be apart of every monumental moment of those girls lives as they're growing, and it breaks my heart to know that we won't be around to see them as they continue to grow up. A picture can only do so much when you're watching a child grow up from miles and miles away.

So that was our weekend. Only 2 weeks to go and Steve thinks our house should be ready.....I'm a little more doubtful, but I'm crossing my fingers nonetheless!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree......

I've been all in the Christmas spirit this year, which is rather abnormal for me since I've always been kind of a grinch.
Anyway....we put our Christmas tree up and it was exciting! I had forgotten about some of the cute stuff we bought on the clearance rack the day after Christmas two years ago that have been sitting in a box in the basement ever since.
Last year we went to visit my family for Christmas, so we didn't do any decorating whatsoever.
So....there were lots of giggles (from me of course) when I opened to box of Christmas decorations and saw some of the cute stuff we had purchased for what felt like the first time.

We were like the freaking brady bunch (only without all the kids) putting our tree up while we listened to cheesy Christmas music all the while smiling and laughing. I think it's official that I'm becoming one of those cheesy people that I've always made fun. I can't even imaging what I'll be like once we have kids. It's SO scary! We sure did have fun though!