totally random post: fascinators, two races, dinner group, thomas jefferson plants & so much more

carrie is getting married in a short while and one night i had the pleasure of meeting her out with some friends to go wedding dress shopping. she was such a good sport and tried on about 50 dresses. it was way fun. the best part was trying on the fascinators. i am ALL about these and so is carrie. we heart them.

side note to carrie: send me some photos of the other night or i can steal them from your blog). k? thanks.

the bride to be, being fascinating in a fascinator

(please note, this is NOT her wedding dress) 

it took me about 30 seconds to have one
of these on, wore it the whole time

i ran in the run for the school at the zoo with a ton of my friends. it was FUN. matt met me there with the kids and we did the zoo afterwards. it was a good day.

this is my 12th race so far

check out my friends! (the smiths, a blum, a hussar,
a davis, the overstreets, the palmers and me) 

kristina ran the show, and did a photo essay of the day 

the hussar twins ran the kid race - they took OFF 

miss mady ran it as well - she must get her talent from her parents 

then it was zoo time. lottie sue and rowdy had a great time.

we have the davis kiddos, the hussar kiddos
and the mowrer kiddos in the jeep 

uh, way to ham it up, lottie sue - not

lottie and matt ride a camel (this was the highlight of her day) 

megan with a cup of joe and watching the exciting camel ride

rowdy was chasing after dad and lottie 

rowdy chats up a camel 

megan and i cannot resist a photo booth

(kissy, happy, scared then pretty) 

the next day lottie sue went to vivaan's birthday party at bounce usa - she had a GREAT time and i took two shots with my phone.

they are blurry because she was never still

and now to the random photo section of the post. here is a photo of something lottie did...looks like snow white was going under the knife.

bb stopped by one evening and brought food for an impromptu picnic.

eating al fresco

THEN a dream came true! i have always wanted to be a runner, and a step up from that i want my family to be an active family. running together is a dream of mine. even though matt has completed a marathon, he hasn't completed a 5K. so on may 7th we ran a 5K as a family - i was so happy!

my race bib (#13)

i pushed the kids for mile 1 and 2 and then matt
came back after finishing to do the last mile

(matt, moi, mackenzie, amy and kelly - with
rowdy and lottie sue in the jogger) 

that night it was the langley's run to host dinner group - thai food was on the menu and is was AWESOME. it was tasty and pretty to look at, way to go! rick also built this crazy awesome deck. i wish i had taken a photo because nothing i write will do it justice. i will bug kate for one (kate, send me a photo!).

good food, good friends 

us cutie pie girls

(kate, moi, amy and jojo) 

and now i have more random photos for you. lottie sue is learning to count, here is she practicing while wearing fairy wings, glitter headband, beaded necklace while carrying a handbag.

the more you know the further you'll go 

our church's parent's day out program had an end-of-the-year festival. and of course we forgot to bring the camera so i shot two with my phone. lottie sue cried (big time) when it was time to go.

happy on the merry go round 

pink face after eating cotton candy 

and check out mr. knox! here he is at his 9-month appointment. check out those legs!!!

could he BE any cuter? nope. 

and now some other photos from my phone.

lottie sue golfed after running through the sprinklers last sunday 

rowdy at the park the other day, he
wanted to go down into that water 

here is lottie sue sulking after i told her it was time to go home

and now, i leave you with items of interest...

• the office a la georges seruat's 'sunday afternoon'
• matt and i love kristen schaal ever since the flight of the concords
• i am excited about the hunger games movies, i like jennifer lawrence but thought she was too old to play the part - but that is overshadowed by woody harrelson as haymitch (i lurve him)
• this is the most expensive photograph ever purchased: $3.89M
• you have probably been living under a rock if you haven't seen this video. i think it's fine but other people are gaga over it.

please say yes

• roseanne barr writes for new york magazine
• i loved melissa mccarthy when she was sookie on the gilmore girls (still love her and now she's in bridesmaids!!!)
• here's a list of the 50 most important women in food (i will NEVER be on that list)
• death cab for cutie is streaming their new album on NPR
• marc maron interviews garry shandling
• i just started watching web therapy, and it is ker-ackin me UP

i will leave with this...dear, sweet kitty kat send us a tomato and strawberry plant. i would take a photo but it is currently storming) all the way from monticello - how COOL and AWESOME is that? well, that's basically kat in a nutshell - cool and awesome. 

THEN she proceeded to write up these descriptions for us. i'm going to have them framed. she is thoughtful AND very pregnant. my brain was NOT capable of doing stuff like this when i had a bun in the the oven. bravo, kitty kat - and thank you again! 

stay tuned for photos of tomatoes and strawberries

alrighty, i have another post that i have to write for you soon. it's from easter and mother's day. stay tuned!

the horror (!), our baby dragon, my friend the comedian, GNO, bozo & snow

hey hey hey. YES. i know it has been way over a month since my last post. please don't be hatin on me, sometimes life gets in the way! i really think i need to rethink how i publish entries, instead of doing long ones every now and then i should really do shorter ones once or twice a week. i'm gonna noodle that.

we have been busy busy bees over here. i do NOT know where the past few weeks have gone. it's 2011, peeps - so happy new year (and i hope you had a great thanksgiving  /christmas / holiday season)! i actually have stuff to post about from our mountain trip with the linkers (oopsie, that was in october), our trip to little rock to visit with matt's wonderful family for thanksgiving, our trip to chicago with the kiddos to see the apples - not to mention christmas with tri-cera-tops. GEEZ.

i, at least, have the photos for the posts ready so now i just have to write it. my brain has been fried from all the goings-ons the past few weeks but i am now finding more time as we get back into normal life. i'm starting to feel the creative juices fee-low once again. huzzah!

so this post is about the most recent happenings, i'll go back in time later on for you.

to make up for my lack in posts i am putting up my sophomore photo from high school. i am sure you remember this photo i found (and frantically posted - mwah ha ha) of becce from back in the day. she questioned where all of my awkward photos might be...i promise you i didn't have any at the time but now i do (thanks, grandma). so, in the spirit of full disclosure - i give you photo evidence of me VERY awkward (my awkward phase lasted from basically first grade through the age of 25 - ha).

the horror (!!!)

you may want to know who did that gorgeous hair style? well, it was me! i wanted blonde hair so i poured peroxide on it (side note: NEVER do that). the glasses are giant and my braces pull everything together, not to mention the lovely acne and WAIT - i just now realized i am wearing a mock turtleneck. save me now. thank goodness i have blossomed into a beautiful swan.

ok, now i am going to blow your mind. matt came across this little gem one night and we have gotten so much mileage out of it. if you have seen us over the past month you have seen our little dragon. SOME people love it (my dad, megan) and SOME people make fun of me for it (ahem, jo...).

you can decide, if you want to make one just download the file, cut it out and fold accordingly. and if you try it and get discouraged just keep going. it's best took cover one eye and look at him in the eyes - before you know it he is ALIVE.

here i have a few photos of some peeps trying it out...

jp gets it

megan sees the light

megan shows it to shawn

the gilmores partake

anywho, it is so much fun. he stays on the desk here where i make blog magic, and i am looking at him with one eye right NOW as i write. and you, too, can have your very own baby dragon - go to this site and download the page. all you have to do is cut and fold accordingly. this site also has a shorter video that probably explains it better but i am unable to embed their video. be sure to check it out.

here's another SUPER neat thing that happened over the break. my college-friend tiffany works a regular job during the day and at night time she is a stand-up comedian. kinda like a super hero if you think about it. 

she had her knoxville debut a few weeks ago and i went to see her - it has been YEARS since we've seen each other. upon reuniting she presented me with a mix tape (or CD really). it was awesome (thank you, tiffany!!!).

anywho, she KILLED it that night and i got to meet all of her fun friends. and they really are fun, we were basically ushered out of the club because of too much fun.

here i am with the super star

here i am with some of tiffany's friends, she had a brood there

here i am with laurie, tiff and moi

(laurie was tiffany's RA at clement - she
used to get on us for studying too quietly)

tiffany on stage - SO COOL

this past weekend tabby hosted a twilight movie marathon / dinner / good times night. it was awesome. we all had so much fun!

the hostess with the mostest

me and the ever-cool shawn

jen and kristina

jo, shawn and myself were talking beauty regimens and
all i could look at was jp peaking at me from the fridge


tabby and i took a lot of photos that night, sometimes

we took photos of each other taking photos

jen, shawn and moi

jo and amy not in focus, but the wine bottles are at least

amy telling a hilarious tale

jo doing the running man

three gorgeous ladies

from the looks on their faces i think this must be a scene in which
jacob was shirtless - oh wait, he's like that in every scene

they all love something, i assume it is either edward or jacob

but jen loves jacob the most

next up we played the best wii game EVER! it's called just dance or something like that. i lurve it sooooo very much. basically, a silhouette is on the screen and you have to dance like him / her / it - the person that nails the most moves wins the round. it's like a dance-off.

group dance

jen and tabby have a round

here i am with kristina (who is so good she can

do it with her eyes closed - she feels the music)

here i am with jen, i wasn't that excited to compete against a former

atlanta falcons cheerleader but i did ok (jen is awesome!)

one more big thank you for tabby for setting everything up and taking care of us that night. whee!!!

on to another important item, rowdy's hair. he has blonde curly hair and matt and i have been holding off on a haircut. it's just so cute. but the past few weeks it's gone from cute to bozo-style. matt and i cut his hair the other night - two people at the same time. matt did the right side and i did the left. probably not smart but we are crazy like that.

not the best picture of rowdyman but you see the hair issue

little blonde curls

 

 looks GOOD, we didn't totally mess it up (!)

we were the lucky recipients of another snow dump - probably 3-4 inches at our house. yesterday we bundled up and ventured outside.

matt and rowdyman (this was his first trip down the hill)

lottie sue loving the snow angel she just made

here she is making another one, she did about 12 of them

lottie sue and rowdy sledding

good thing i work out

they are sledding down the street at a
super slow pace, but it worked for them

here i am with rowdyman

here rowdy is eating snow

lottie sue wanted to make a snow man so we did a mini-version on the deck.

making the base

putting arms in

rowdy eating even more snow

and lottie sue eating snow

ta DA! we had beans for a mouth but they kept falling out


in this photo it looks like rowdy was putting an eye in
but he was actually taking the olive out to eat it

so that concludes my first post of the year - now that i've noodled it, i do think i am going to try and do smaller posts more often so look for another one by the end of the week/weekend. but of course i leave you with a few items of interest:

1. the other night at GNO amy and i talked for a while about books. i'm going to list the ones that either one of us has read and then some that we are going to read

the hunger games, book one of a trilogy - i read the first one and like it. this has "let's option this for a movie" written all over it

a game of thrones, amy recommends this trilogy and that's enough for me

a visit from the goon squad - i don't even know what this is about but i've seen it recommended in a few magazines and that's all i need

just kids, this book just won a pulitzer - it's by patti smith and it's supposed to be great

freedom: a novel, i bought this for cera for christmas, maybe she can weigh in on it but it came in #1 on several book lists

the immortal life of henrietta lacks, THIS sounds so good to me - it's about an immortal line of cells that made crucial innovations in modern science (that's from the synopsis, not me)

2. i got a lot of items for christmas that i really loved this year, one of my favorites is my clarisonic plus sonic skin cleansing system

 

it is a pricey item BUT it's like getting a mini facial every day - if you did that at the spa it was be astronomical. matt keeps telling me how pretty i look, tee hee. i got it because becce wanted one, she really makes shopping easy for me as she has the eye for stuff i like. i'm a copy cat. meow.

3. four of the top ten composers lived in vienna from 1750 - 1825, the times asks what on earth was going on there to foster such achievement

4. down the hatch and straight into medical history, here's a story on what people swallow

5. and a few posts ago i mentioned a list of the best magazine articles ever written, here's a new one for you. matt says it's the best he's read so and i have it on my nightstand. from esquire, "the falling man"

6. i love visuals! and i love statistics!!! here is a sampling of statistics from the newly release statistical abstract of the united states

i am one of those eating less red meat, for shizzle

7. when being too frugal crosses the line

8. here is a list of some overlooked movies from last year that you may want to see

ok, that's all i have for now. i am hoping that school is back in session tomorrow. i do love the snow but it really messes up my mojo. i started going back to the gym (after a 6-week hiatus - GASP) last week and have been snowed in yesterday and today. i really want to get back in that as i've told about 100 people that i am doing a half marathon this year - so that means i kinda have to do it now. i will blog more about what happened to my running initiative in another post but to sum it up - life and the holidays got in the way. 

i leave you with something i saw online, thought it was pretty so i'm sharing it with you. 

ciao!

xoxo,

jen