If you really knew me.....

I am linking up with my grad school friend Lynsey to a neat post of

"If you really knew me...."

If you really knew me you would know:

I do not like things that are white and creamy; that includes yogurt, sour cream, cool whip, soft white cheeses and I could go on and on

I love football, esp. the Steelers, the Georgia Bulldawgs and University of Pittsburgh (even though I never went there)

I worry about everything, I am very analytical.

I love to give gifts, that is my love language.

I believe you can never have too many friends and I hate to exclude people and although I move a decent amount I try really hard to stay connected to my friends from college

I say "bolth" instead of both and "un-k" instead of ok

I have had 7 surgeries

I have no sense of smell and to my knowledge never have

when i laugh most of the time its so hard I cry

I have a problem of keeping a straight face when I am uncomfortable and laugh in some of the most serious situations

I am very sensitive and I wear my heart of my sleeve

If I could do something else it would probley work for Dave Ramsey or be a financial planner, many of my family members say I am good at it

I really like coupons and hate when I miss out on using one; I hate buying things at full price.

Thanks for reading!

Visiting with my Sister, Beat Chattanooga

 

Well this past weekend Josh was away as he traveled to Chattanooga for the App State/Chattanooga Football game. My sister Christie was going to her husband's cousin's wedding in Charlotte so I hopped in the car with Jake Saturday morning and made my way down to spend some time with them.

 

 

 

 

 

Jake got to play cornhole with Uncle Stephen and Stephen's cousin. He LOVED it. I am thinking next year his birthday party will just be a grill out at our house and we will have games like this.

 

  Here is Christie and Stephen

 

 

 

30 weeks!

 

 

 

 

Me and the little sister.

 

 

I had such a nice time hanging out with her in-laws Blake and Becky which I love as if they were my own. It was nice to just chill with family.

 

 

I have been wanting to do a post on friends but am never good about putting personal stuff on this blog. I am so glad that I have a sister to vent to or share with because it seems friends come and go no matter how hard you try to keep up the relationship.

 

Most of my college friends live in Atlanta and I rarely get to see them, although when I do its as if I just saw them yesterday. My best friend is staying in NYC for work and I have never been to NYC so I am going to visit her in about a month.

 

I have 2 good friend neighbors but working in one town, living in another and Josh working in another makes it hard to have a social life, especially with football season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what I keep telling myself, so many changes on the horizon, do we move or do we stay? What job will be next? Adoption?

 

 

 

I am looking forward in two years my sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta, will be chartering at Appalachian State, so I am going to be on the committee to kick things off there and I am hoping that will pave the way for more relationships to be built.

 

 



Beat Montana!

 

Yes, We beat Montana last night 35-27. It was great. Here are some photos of the last week, including the game last night.

 

 

 Jake decided the other night that since it was dark in the house he needed to protect us. So of course he grabs his flashlight, his bible and puts a cape on. Cracked us up, had to take a picture.

 

 

 This is Jake this morning getting ready to go to football with Daddy while I dropped off items for the WeeCycle Adult and Homegoods sale in Boone. I hope to get enough money to be able to pay for a ticket to NYC to visit my best friend who is doing some work there.

 

 

 Always have to stop at the outlets while up the mountain

 

 Rainbow at the game

 

 My neighbor Leah and I

Disregard the hat and glasses. I looked better but it start to rain so I ran to Josh's office and grabbed a hat so I didn't get drenched.

 

 Sweet Skylar - 4 months

 Jake and Sydney:)

 

 

 

 

I have started the tradition of taking a picture of Jake before we leave for the first home game

 

Here he is at 2 yrs.

 

Jake at  3 years

 

 

Here he is at 4 years. We had his hair cut today so makes him look even older.

 

Just for memory I have to say as we were leaving for the game with Leah I go to use my garage door opener to close the door, it wouldn't work. So she ran back down to her house with Jake, because she forgot something. I realized the inside the garage button wouldn't work either. So I go to my next door neighbor, Andrew, who is a police officer and pushed his door bell, he didn't answer but I thought well that's odd but didn't knock. Instead I went to the next neighbor, who happened to be outside. Luckily we are friends with most of our neighbors.

 

Her husband came out to pull my garage door down so I could leave. By this time almost all the neighbors were standing outside as we had figured out we had all lost power. So then Andrew came out and helped Dawn's husband pull my emergency cord for my door and get it down.

 

Finally we were on the way to the game.

 

Also, for memory I have set up my neighbor Leah with my co-worker, Adam. It happened kinda oddly this week while he and I were talking at work through instant message. Because I work out of the Asheville Assocation he technically lives south of Asheville in Hendersonville. BUT they started talking Wednesday and haven't stopped since:) Even went on their first date friday. I hope it works out!

 

 



Jake's Check up and Salsa making

Jake had his 4 year old check up this past Wednesday.

At 4 year's old he is 38 pounds (67%)

41 inches (64%)

So just above the middle of the road. I expect he will be like Josh and be 5'8 or so and lean, but he has my personality:) haha.

I have shared this on facebook but I am recording it on here for memories. This what Jake said to the doctor this week:

Jake at his 4 year old check up today. "doc, I think I know what the problem is". "
doc says, "ok".
Jake" i think my heart hurts. "
Doc" why is that?"
Jake" I think it's because I eat boogers"
Doc "yes, you should probley stop doing that."

He has very good vocabulary and suprises me and how adult he can be sometimes.

He got 4 shots which he DID NOT like (but who does?) and hobbles around for the next day saying it hurt because they did them in his thighes.

We have SO many tomatoes that I am running out of ideas as to how to use them. So I told Josh I wanted a blender for making salsa (suprised we never registered for one when we got married over 6 years ago but that is besides the point). So Josh came home with one this week as my early birthday present.

My neighbor Leah traded some cilantro for some of my tomatoes and green onions so I will able to try to set out and make some this morning with Jakes help.

I loved how easy it was to blanche the tomatoes.

  Ingredients:

3 cans of rotel (great value brand)

4 fresh tomatoes cut up

minced garlic

onion

cilantro

lime (left over from what I ordered at dinner last night along with some red onion that Josh didn't want on his hamburger lol)

This is Jake reading the directions to the blender.

At first I thought the salsa looked a little soupy but after tasting it I think it was a success!

I went ahead and fixed up 6 more tomatoes and a green pepper (that was pretty much turned to a red pepper) and put them in Ziploc vaccum frezzer bags which I had in my storage cabinet.

I am very excited that it was so easy to make and have already consumed half of the above container, luckily it made enough for entire larger container (not pictured).

Coming Up......our trip to Chicago this week to see family.....yay!

Catching Up

So I would like to update more often but I just never get the energy to sit down and put all of the pictures together, or the time for that matter:) So this will just be a catch up post. 

 This was our tomato plant a couple of weeks ago, its worse now. Not that we don't have a TON of tomatoes but it has taken over our garden. We had to move both our blue berries and our green pepper plant because of all of the shade this plant gives off. Now I just need to buy a blender to make some salsa:)

 This is my new favorite food, mini mexican bowls. I just cut out tortilla's the width of a martini glass, microwave them to make them soft, stuff them in the cupcake molds and put some shredded cheese on the bottom and fill them with cooked chicken, back beans, tomatoes and top with some more shredded cheese.I LOVE them, but after making them twice and seeing the scale go up I think I should hold off before making more..haha.  

 Jake LOVES to play on our front porch, here we were playing super heros:)

 Jake and one of his best friends Sydney who is also our neighbor hanging out at our house

The two green peppers our plant has yielded. I expected more but I think because of all of the shade it has gotten and having to replant it in a sunnier area this may be all we get. 

We had to reschedule Jake's 4 year old check up so hopefully I can update those results soon.

Football started on Friday with Media Day on Saturday. Luckily Jake was able to go work with Josh while I worked (I try to pick a MOD day that he doesn't have football and other than yesterday and the weekend before Thanksgiving we have games every weekend.)

So football life has started again! Every year it gets easier in some sense as Jake gets older (unless we decide to throw another kid in the mix next year). 

Josh and my birthdays fall around next weekend. I usually spend the weekend in ATL with my girlfriends but  this year I am flying up to Chicago with my family to see my mom's side of the family which is great too. Looking forward to a few days off.:)

Jake's 4th Birthday

Yesterday was Jake's 4th Birthday Party. I can't believe another year has gone by! He is growing up too fast. Although I am glad that the party planning is over, it always stresses me out since we live in one town and he goes to school in another town an hour away it always makes it hard.

This was the spiderman cake and cupcakes that I had R.A.Z's bakery make this year. The sad thing was that the party moved along so fast that we forgot to cut the cake since all the kids got cupcakes. So I am hoping to use the cake on his actual birthday on Tuesday in his classroom.

This is a picture of my sister who is 19 weeks pregnant and just found out it will be a BOY. Excited to have another nephew, especially with it being on my side.

These are my two cute nieces Thea and Peyton who will be turning 2 soon.

Me and Thea

 Party decorations

 My mom and the bounce house we have at the Y

My Child Watch coordinator and 2 of her 3 girls

All of the kids got to make superhero masks and went home with either a cape I made or fairy wings.

Our neighbor Sydney

Jake's friend Cayden trying on his cape

My sweet birthday boy

This is when my in-laws got here. 4 kids under 2 in one car, it was a long ride to say the least but we are thankful they took the over 2 hour trip and made the party.

Present time

kids eating and making spiderman necklaces

 This is a picture of my brother in law Stephen and my nephew T.J. (not related).

On the right side is a picture of Uncle Stephen showing Jake how to use the NERF gun he gave him for his birthday.

Family Day - hiking

Yesterday we decided to take a hike up where it was cooler in Blowing Rock. This was after I had already walked with my friend Leah that morning. 

We ended up at Price Park where it said that the hike was 2.4 miles, which I obviously thought was fine at the time, BEFORE we headed off.

Jake loved the creek and the mini falls that he found.

 This is Jake about half way in to the hike. We had no idea that our little hike would end up being for a hour and a half!

 This is Jake and I before we started.

After the hike we took Jake to the playground in Blowing Rock (suprised that he had any energy left to play). We treated him to some ice cream:)

We then came home and our friends Sydney and Avril came over that night to play.

It was such a wonderful day getting to spend time as a family doing something outdoors where the weather was cooler.

Next up is Jake's 4th Birthday party. Where has the time gone? It will be a Superhero/Spiderman party. Family is coming in friday night to help celebrate and the party will be Saturday morning. I will update after all the festivities:)