The 11th Anniversary Of My 21st Birthday

Was so much fun! Andy and I went to the Seahawks preseason game last night against the Packers. It was awesome! Great seats + great game = great time! (Thank you Troy and Dusty for the wonderful birthday present!) Here are some pictures I took.
Then today, Andy and the girls surprised me with a couple of paintings I had wanted. (They're so wonderful! How'd I get so lucky?) Check them out!
Needless to say, I had a great birthday and I can't wait to do it again next year!

I did it, for real this time....

I cut my hair. And when I say cut, this time I mean I chopped it.

I really like it! Whatcha think?

Creativity

Today, as per usual, I was browsing around the web and I came across a neat thing on a friends blog. You see, I am a sucker for cool photography. I love taking and viewing pictures. So, when I saw this, it looked interesting and I wanted to do it too! Below is what she had posted on her blog.

Mosaic

Here's how to do it:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com)

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and Paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's Mosaic Maker (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php)

d. Save the image and blog it!

So I did it (it was fun, hence the reason I am blogging it!) and here are the results.

Questions:

1. What is your first name? Jen

2. What is your favorite food? Eggs Benedict

3. What is your favorite color? Purple

4. What is your favorite drink? Ginger Ale

5. What is your dream vacation? Australian Vacation

6. What is your favorite hobby? Bowling

7. What do you want to be when you grow up? A Traveler

8. What do you love most in life? Family

9. What is one word that describes you best? Crazy

Go on and try it yourself now! I bet you will come up with a neat mosaic too!

Planting a Tree

Since we bought our house in March of last year, we have been lacking one thing. We have no trees in our yard. There are trees all around us in all of our neighbors yards, but we have none. That changed today. Andy, the girls and I went to Clear Creek Nursery yesterday in search of a tree. Experts say right now is the best time to plant a bare root tree. So off we went. We looked all around the place looking for the perfect tree. We finally found it in the far back corner. There it stood, in all its glory. A Crimson King Norwegian Maple. It was beautiful even in all its bareness. We paid for it, then realized we had no transport for it. We had to leave it there until today, when we had someone help us bring it home. After much thought, we decided it was to be planted in the far right corner of our front yard. So, we promptly started digging a hole for it. Here are our pictures of our new tree being planted.

Andy digging the hole.
Andy after he put the 200 lb. tree in place.
Me, filling the hole. I plant trees real good! :)
Our new tree!!! Isn't it pretty!
I know it's bare right now, but I will post updates when it gets all its leaves and little flowers.

Bragging Rights

Andy and I bowl a league on Wednesday nights. Andy is a 220+ average bowler (he's been bowling since he was 4 years old!), and I am a measly 150 average bowler. Not so bad, since I have only been bowling on a league for 4 seasons. So for the people who don't know, we bowl a series of 3 games a night. I usually bowl a 450 series or so. For the last 2 weeks I have bowled over 500 for my series. I thought that was great and all, but then it happened. Tonight, I bowled a 603 series!!!!!!! I bowled a 203, a 219, and a 181!!! Two 200+ games!!!! I am using the exclamation point too much!!!! But, I am sooooo excited!!!!! Now, I have bragging rights!

No School? Let's go to the park!

Since the girls had no school today, Andy and I took them to the park. We actually just went down to their school, since the park we like to go to was packed, and because Syd and Andy wanted to play catch and basketball. So, off we went. It was a really pretty day. The sun was shining and the temperature was 50 degrees!
We all had lots of fun. In fact the only reason we came home was because we were all hungry. I had been cooking a roast in the slow cooker all day. So, all I had to do was make the mashed potatoes. We stuffed ourselves because it was soooo good! Fun day and a great dinner! What more could you ask for?

And, You Guessed It........

Even more snow!!! Yup, that's right.I'm not worried about school or work being canceled tomorrow, though. There is suppose to be rain moving in. But, from the looks of it outside, I'm starting to doubt it. It's coming down hard. That's exactly what I want, though, more snow! Yay! I love it!

With more snow, comes more snowmen, snow forts, and all around snow fun! And of course I had to take pictures of it! Here are some of the latest.

That's the view from my front window. I told you it was coming down hard!

The new snowman Andy and the girls made. It wasn't quite finished when I took the picture.

That's because it turned into a snow wall! Even as I write this, Andy is still not done piling snow on top of it! He has waaaay too much fun in the snow!

And finally, me and Andy in the snow. I LOVE it!!!!

Thumbs Up

Last night I had a big blonde moment. Everything was fine, Andy had just gone to work, the kids were eating dinner, and I had just changed into my pajamas so I could relax for the night. I went outside to chop kindling so I could start a fire. I do this almost every night unless Andy does it for me. So there I was, chopping kindling, when my thumb must have decided it was suicidal. I set the piece of wood down, left my hand on the wood, raised up the hatchett, and chop. I severed a piece of my thumb off. I don't exactly know why I never moved my hand, I just didn't. It wasn't like I moved too slow or anything, I just didn't move my hand. Silly me. I ran in the house and literally ran my thumb under water for five minutes! Do you realize how long 5 min. is when you are bleeding? I didn't I was too in shock. I kept thinking it would stop bleeding, but it never did. Sydney panicked and rushed and got the band-aids. When we tried 4 different band-aids and not one stopped the bleeding either, she got me paper towels and I just wrapped my thumb up, and applied pressure. Now, like I said, Andy had just gone to work, so I didn't want to call him because I didn't want him to rush home if it wasn't a big deal. At this point, since it was bleeding so much, I didn't even know I had chopped a piece off. I thought I had just sliced it. I tried to call my mom, since she lives just down the street. No answer. I wasn't in my right mind. I was so in shock, and I was just trying to calm myself down and my girls down, since they witnessed the whole thing. I really cared more about them at that point then myself, which I think was the reason I was not panicking like they were. So, I paced back and forth for a bit, and finally gave in and called Andy at work. He rushed home as fast as he could and took me to the hospital. At the hospital, I was asked several times what I had done. Everyone looked at me like I was the "dumbest blonde" (sorry for the stereotype) they had ever seen. I guess they missed the fact that I am a redhead. :) Oh well, I didn't care. I was too in shock, I was literally laughing the whole time at the hospital. Yep, I am convinced they thought I was crazy. Anyway, the doctor's last name was Dahlgren. That probably means nothing to you, but being in the state of mind I was in, that was so cool to me. You see, when I was a kid, I lived in Dahlgren, VA. So I proceeded to inform him of this, and ask him if he was related to the Civil War Rear Admiral John Dahlgren, the guy the town was named after. He had to have know I was out of my mind by then. I had severed my thumb, and I was asking about his last name. Anyway, he told me a story about it, and so on. Turns out, he is not related. Wierd, because that is not a common last name. But anyways, back to my thumb. He said not to worry, that it will grow back. But, I needed a Tetnus shot, and he was gonna have to scrub the wound. The word "scrub" freaked Andy out. He asked the doctor if he was going to numb it. The doc said only if I wanted him to. So Andy, as hard as he could, tried to convince me, who is completely gone at this point, that I needed this. Sure, whatever, he must know what his is talking about right? So, I said ok. The nurse came in and gave me my tetnus shot, which didn't really hurt, but I am a chicken when it comes to needles, so I was a little more scared about it then I should have been. We waited a bit longer, then the doc comes in with an even bigger needle, to give me the shot of novocaine. Uh, uh, I was not having that! I freaked out. He told me I could scream if I wanted to, and Andy held my hand. Now, the door to my room was still open, and I had just seen a cute little 4-ish year old boy in the hallway. I turned my head and looked at Andy, while he poked my finger, I am not kidding you, like 7 or 8 times with the needle. IN THE WOUND!!! After the 7th-ish time I couldn't feel it anymore, but I did take his advice and I screamed my head off, because it HURT! While I was being a baby by screaming, all I could think about was that little boy out in the hallway, hoping I wasn't freaking him out. So after that ordeal was all over, the nurse came in and scrubbed, I mean really scrubbed, the wound with bristled sponge. Thank God I actually listened to my husband. He really does love me, because I would have been screaming louder and harder if I hadn't! After that, he wrapped my finger up and told me I could go home, and to just change the bandages every couple days or so. What an interesting day, I tell you. I have never been so grateful to have a thumb before in my life, and now I would really like to keep the ones I have! As you can tell, it was my left thumb. I posted the pics below, but since they are gross, I made them real small, so just click on them if you want to see the bloodiness that was my thumb last night. Thank goodness it wasn't my bowling hand!

My 30th Birthday

Its my birthday!!!! Yeah!!! I have been dreading this day for a month now. But since it is finally here I couldn't be more excited. I was so very worried about turning 30. I remember when my mom turned 30 and I thought that was sooooo old, so I was scared because of my silly childhood memories. I'm a goof ball! Anyways, here's a birthday pic of me.

Silly faces

Madeline brought me the camera today and asked if she could take pictures of us with "silly faces." By that, she meant for us to stick out our tongues. Here are those wacky pictures.....

Mommy

DaddyScottie Jay

This silliness is brought to you by Madeline!

Webcam

Madeline is so funny. The littlest things just amaze her. Today she found my webcam on my laptop. She just had to take pictures with it. Here are the ones she took that we posed for.

Needless to say, she is a goof ball, just like her mother!