Owen.

I am so thankful for my son.

Owen has changed our lives in a billion ways, all for the good.  We didn't ask for our lives to be thrown upside down, but they were, and we are extremely thankful, and much different, and better people because of him.  He really gave our lives direction, and makes life much more fun, and exciting!  More stressful? YES.  But so worth it.

Owen is such a good boy, a good son, and a good friend.  I am so in love with my little man, and I thought i'd tell you all.


:)

October 31st FUN!

We Dressed Owen up as a lion :)

We went to see a few friends  (from whom i stole MOST of these pics!..thanks crystal and sandy)

then we headed off to the mall with our pal Riley.  ( I have lots more pictures to upload of both Riley & Owen at the mall getting sweets AND our nashville vacation...they'll be coming SOON!!!!)

After all the excitement, we went out to eat at Old Country Buffet with family to celebrate Erin's (Owen's grandma and my mother in law) birthday, and their anniversary!!  It was a great night!

Happy November Everybody!!! 

Back From Nash.

We had a beautiful time in Nashville.  It was a reminder to us that

a.) we love that place.
b.) we have some of the best friends in the entire world (and all over the world too!)

I have lots of fun pictures to post but am having some camera troubles, so I'll be posting them soon, meanwhile.....


stay tuned!!!

Ode To Fall.

Our First....

zoo trip~!  I know, i can't believe we waited til O was 18 months to take him to the zoo...but oh well, it was great fun either way! :)

 We attempted to get a family picture.  Good news is, Owen ACTUALLY smiled!  bad news, he forgot to put his sippy cup down!  :)

Notre Dame Game~!  Mark won free tickets to this game.  We dropped Owen off at my parents house, and made a day of it!!  Got lunch together, drove to notre dame, walked like 3 miles so we didn't have to pay for parking, had awesome seats, and came home WIPED OUT!!!  We had a blast...and I understood football for the 1st time in my life, and LIKED IT!!!  Let's just say, if we're able, we'll definitely be going back! :)

October has proven to be BUSY, and STRESSFUL so far.....Mark's car died, and we have to find a new car YET again.  We've been to the doctor AND er so you know i'm anxiously waiting for these medical bills to arrive!  but..through everything, there is a light at the end of that tunnel....

NASHVILLE VACATION!!

11 more days!

Crock-pots.

I am all about using crock-pots during the fall and winter.  There is something about really warm, practically effortless dinners that I adore.  I always try lots of crock-pot recipes....some good, some not so good (just tried a fish recipe i found online, claiming it didn't taste a thing like fish...and wow...GROSS!..let's just say i will NOT be sharing that.)  I'm a big fan of chili's and soups and now, I'm a HUGE fan of this VERY FALL tasting recipe.

Go try it, seriously.  It is so stinkin good.

Here's what you need:

* 1 cup apple juice
* 4 chicken breast, or 6-8ish chicken tenders
* 1 sweet onion
* 2 Apples
* 3 tbs lemon juice
* few dashes of cinnamon


Directions:
1. Pour the 1 cup apple juice into the crock pot
2. Place Chicken into juice
3. Cut up onion and place all around chicken (if you don't normally like onions..i promise, you cannot even taste any onion flavor at ALL!)
4. Chop up apples, mix in a bowl with 3 tablespoons lemon juice and about teaspoon cinnamon, and pour over chicken.
5. Cook for 6-8 hours on high or until chicken is done.
6.  You can add cinnamon as desired.


-I served it with rice and veggies.  It was a huge hit and reminds me of fall at it's finest!!

(this is BEFORE the it was cooked)

And, if you know me, you know that I can be a little wishy-washy when it comes to eating meat...well not this...i devoured it...and it helps that I found this amazing chicken at Target recently.  I've been looking for chicken without added pesticides/chemicals/hormones...chicken has the most chemicals added to it normally of other meats..and it just makes me feel weird. and it's usually stupid expensive and i've been discouraged! Well i totally found really fairly priced, locally grown, chemical free chicken and it makes me feel so much better when i eat it!  I'd recommend it a lot a lot! :)

So now that i blogged about food..i'm starving.  gonna go make dinner>

:-)

Happy Slow-cooking!

Good-bye September.

I feel like the past two months have been so full of things we've been doing, that I don't really even know how to update my blog!  We are doing pretty well, just have been busy!! End of September I helped plan/buy for a tailgate for a ND game for a lady out of Dallas, TX.  It was serious business!  My cr-v was filled TO THE TOP with food and alcohol.  It was insane!

Here is a picture of just SOME of the alcohol that was at this thing!! Pretty crazy!

And here's a peak at what the inside of my cr-v looked like.  Trust me, this picture does NOT do it justice.

I learned through doing this, that I really love helping/shopping/planning for events for other people! :-)  With that said, it's something I'd love to get into more  (if you know anyone who needs event help...*cough cough* send them my way!!...shameless plug for myself!)

Something that has been an ever-present thing in our family for this past month is SICKNESS.  I think we've been to the doctor once for me, 3 times for Owen, and are in the process of scheduling an appointment for mark.  Needless to say, it's been pretty crazy.  Owen came down with a DOUBLE ear infection a couple weeks ago.  After the antibiotics were all gone, we thought we were in the clear, at least for a while!  WRONG!  About a week later, we woke up to a coughing, weezing little man.  Called the doctor at 1 in the morning, 3 hours sitting in the doctors office later, and we're sent home with a nebulizer and a "please return in two days."  

The first time we had to use this thing, Owen screamed like we were killing him.  He's getting pretty used to it now, since he has to deal with it every 4 hours, and it's definitely helping him.  It also helps that he loves the fishy mask, and that I let him watch veggie tales while we do the treatment.   We return to the doctor TOMORROW, to find out what exactly she thinks is going on (suspicion is bronchitis.)   He is such a tough little guy!

Here's  a funny little thing Owen did this past week.  I was sitting in the living room, and heard him crying in the dining room.  I went immediately into the dining room (where i suspected to see him playing with his toys, possibly caught under the table or something...) and i couldn't find him anywhere, but i could hear him crying!  How strange!!! So i kept looking...and finally I found the location of the crying....  behold:

yes.  He had gotten stuck in the storage basket of his stroller.  So funny because I don't know what made him think, "this would be fun" and also because he was so helplessly cute...

We've been spending a lot of time playing at the chick-fil-a playground.  Why?  

a. Mark&I have a new found love for chick-fil-a

b. they have a play area for toddlers, so they aren't left to fend for themselves on the HUGE tubes that they are far too small to fit in!

However, when no big kids are there...I do let him attempt the "big kid" slides. :)

You were good to us September, but we are so happy and ready to dive into October.  Mainly...because it's VACATION MONTH!!! WAHOOOOO!