Happy Spring

Happy Spring everyone!  It might not feel like it yet but I've decorated for it!

Every year Logan and I have "Birthday Week."  I try to plan lots of special things for us to do on the days that I'm off from work.  Usually I have some cleaning left to do but this year I had it done early-except for a little last minute outdoor cleaning I decided to do two hours before the party.  This year I had March 7-12 off so I had a couple of things planned.  I always let him pick a toy out-so off we went to Target in search of the perfect toy.  I think we went up and down the aisles for at least half an hour.  Every time he came to something he thought was really neat (everything) he'd say "Look!" in this really high pitched voice-so funny!  He finally decided on Mack the semi-truck from Cars. It's now one of his favorite toys.

Jared and I also took Logan to the Lincoln Children's Museum.  I think he had a good time-there were quite a few older kids there so it kind of made it more difficult for the smaller kids to do stuff.  I honestly don't know if we'll go back-once you've seen it it's not that big of a deal.

The peg wall

The other side of the peg wall with Logan's hand prints

Picking up moon rocks

Driving "Mack"

Driving a tractor

I also planned on taking him to the zoo but it doesn't open until April so we'll go then.  I'm so glad that I take this time off from work to enjoy "Birthday Week" and plan on doing it every year.

Logan's 3rd Birthday!

Logan turned 3 on March 11-I can't believe it!  It's so amazing to see this little person that couldn't do anything but sleep, eat and poop turn into such an intelligent, caring and funny person.  I've loved every minute of it so far and am excited to see what the next year will bring.

We celebrated on Saturday with family and close friends-it was a blast.  Logan received some awesome gifts-we're very blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives.

The theme of the party this year was Cars (the movie).  I asked Logan way back in January what kind of party he wanted to have and all he said he wanted was a Mater cake.  Thus the theme was decided.

I really enjoy decorating the house for holidays and his birthday parties and sometimes go a little overboard.  Last year I found these awesome decals that you can put right on the wall so I decided to do that again this year-it turned out really cute.  I also found a book of cardboard cutouts of some of the characters from the movie that we placed on the tables-those were pretty fun too.

Logan seemed to really enjoy the party-especially the presents!  Among them were a train table (from both sets of Grandparents), a motorized Mater truck, a motorized digger, and lots of cars from the movie Cars.  Jared and I bought him a couple of new trains for his train table and Cars 2.  I think the movie was more of a gift to ourselves so we can watch something other than Cars-we pretty much have that memorized.
This years menu consisted of a pickle and olive tray, a veggie and cracker tray with garlic herb dip, hot and spicy mix, cake (yum!), cherry chews and lemon cookies.  Lots of good food!

The train table

More Snow

Well the first day of spring has come and gone and with it has come snow!  Not exactly what I expected.  The only good thing about snow in March is that it won't last long.  The weather is supposed to turn around and be around 50 degrees by the end of the week-yay!  I'm so excited for spring-the pretty flowers, nice weather and running outside.

This weekend was my Great Grandma's 93rd birthday party. She's still going strong and still cooking up a storm.  She makes these homemade noodles that are to die for.  We eat them over mashed potatoes--so good!

Saturday evening I was doing a little yarn browsing and came across some yarn that I'd been wanting forever for 50% off.  I couldn't pass it up.  I can't wait to start knitting with it.  It's a beautiful purple tweed.  The pattern I'm going to knit is called the Livingstone Cardigan.

That's it for tonight...off to bed with my knitting and what's left of my post-run smoothie.

Home Projects

Back in December for our anniversary (10 years together-5 of them married!) Jared bought me a giant pile of boards to start finishing the basement with.  A couple of weeks later he went and bought some more boards and some insulation.  I think he's made a total of three trips to Menard's-I have a feeling there will be many more to come!  So far almost all of the outer walls are framed and most of the room that's going to be our living space is even wired and insulated.  We had some help from Jack (Jared's dad) and a friend of the family who's helped on some of Jack's projects.

This picture is almost the same view of the first picture (above) but it's now insulated.

Another possible project that we have coming up is our front porch.  For some time now the porch has been sinking and it just keeps getting worse.  I've been in contact with our insurance company and we'll be having someone out to look at the damage and tell us what we need to start doing.  I'm very optimistic that it will go well.

My Favorite Things from February

1. My very own TREADMILL!!!!!  I'm so super excited to have my own treadmill.  I've been wanting one since I started running three years ago.  It just so happened that our Pastor was selling his on the cheap and we decided to buy it...my husband rocks!  It's nothing fancy but it does everything I need it to and it's quiet enough for me to watch TV while I'm running-perfecto!

2. Finishing my (almost) first pair of socks.

This might be confusing but stick with me.  My good friend and coworker was retiring in November and she LOVES socks.  I've never knitted socks before but I really wanted to try just for her.  In October I started knitting my very first sock (one of the socks in the picture above) just to see if I could do it.  I figured it out and it didn't seem to take me all that long so I decided to give it a go.  I put these socks aside and started knitting the socks for my coworker.  In all truth those are my first finished pair of socks but one of these socks is my very first sock ever knitted...get it?  I'm very proud :)  The colorway of these socks is called London 2012 in honor of the 2012 Olympics-every time I look at these socks I think of Michael Phelps, gymnastics, the song "Home" by Phillip Phillips and the song "Call Me Maybe" by what's her face. (If any of you watched the Olympics you'll get the last two references).

3.  Playing board games with Logan

We played Candy Land for the first time in February and although it was a little hard on my patience (I don't nearly have enough some days...just ask my husband) he acutally understood it and we had fun-he won!

4.  Valentine's Day

My husband is awesome all year round but I like to make sure he knows how much I appreciate him.  This year for V Day instead of buying him something (he's so picky!) I made an awesome dinner of Chicken Pot Pies ( I seem to make these a lot) and Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting-delicious!  He did very well in the gift buying department with the first season of Downton Abbey! and some delicious salted caramels...so good.

That's all for February-can't wait for spring!



My Logan (in January)

Story time

Children's time at church

Sitting in the saddle at Texas Roadhouse

Eating one of his favorite meals-salad!

Making a mess at GG's while I ran on the treadmill :)

Sitting in the "hole" in our couch-just like Don from Dinosaur Train