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

silhouettes (the good and then ours) & nice girls finish dead last

i hope all the mommies out there are having a great day so far, i sure have. it started with a wonderful breakfast in bed with my family - lottie sue and rowdy gave me a very lovely pair of earrings and i LOVE them. thank you my sweet babes (and matt)!

here's the card they gave to me...it cracked me up.

"best blogger ever" is RIGHT

this post is comprised of a major photo dump, i have photos from several things i'm thowing on here.

i'm going to lead with the silhouette section. this should be entertaining for you.

a lottie sue and rowdyman, april 2010

here is mr. harlan's right side

for mother's day we are giving all the mommies/grandmommies silhouettes of the kids. we had them cut by clay rice at smart toys and books in early april. the guy is pretty amazing, you sit your kid down and he looks at them while cutting out their profile with tiny scissors. i assumed he was going to trace their profile with a light and a wall but no - he cuts them out. i found this photo on his website so you can see what i mean.

he could be tim burton's brother

last night the smiths came over to hang out and i was explaining how he did this then of course we get idea that WE can do just as good a job as clay rice and decide to draw each other's profile. we talked about cutting them out like he does, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. anyway, overall they were pretty terrible but made for many laughs. there were a few good ones in there here and there. the name on top is the object and the names below the drawings are the "artist."

we voted that mine was best (but still not very good)

tommy wins this round although matt's is pretty good

it is a shame but i can't find tommy's drawing of matt, i
am pretty sure it was good (i will continue the search)

megan thinks i look like jimmy durante i guess

last week lottie sue's school put on a program for the end of the year. her class performed three songs, lottie participated in about 30% of the performance and the rest of the time she stood up there and smiled at the audience. you never know what you will get. here is a shot of her during a moment when she was actually performing.

center stage

this is what rowdy did the whole time.

nom nom nom nom nom

i stand corrected, he also did this with his pops.

my two favorite boys

later that day i had lunch with carrie, patterson and cassady at one of our regular spots, TOT (taste of thai). good food, good times.

carrie and rowdy

rowdy and cassady play together. rowdy was reaching for cassady's pacifier here, you can see in the next picture cassady has it under tight wraps.

rowdy reaches for the pacifier

cassady thinks not

carrie invited us to join her at the pool on friday and we gladly took her up on that offer. it was FUN FUN FUN but sorta busy with two little kids, hence only one photo. rowdy is a chick magnet, when they left to do something else he started crying. he likes the ladies, what can i say?

hi girls, how YOU doin?

that saturday i ran in yet another race, the tennessee school for the deaf holds a race each year. it starts on their campus then runs through the gorgeous island home community.

it was awesome. i beat my prior race time by a whole minute plus the route was so so so pretty and so so so flat (my heart is a flutter). you can view their photos here, i found this one of me. i have my running friend ava behind me there (she's completed three (or four but it could be six, i can't remember but i know it's a lot) half marathons in the past year) and we stayed together the whole race. i think we were about to round the corner and hit the first mile mark. anywho, look how happy we are!

it's just one foot in front of the other

after the race we met the smiths downtown for breakfast and to pick up our first delivery from colvin family farms. again, here i am being super happy (along with megan, she's super happy, too).

our first loot

we joined a csa and are very excited about it. here is a link to the family that grows our produce for us. they are super nice people and do a good good thing. to quote them:

At Colvin Family Farm we proudly raise the freshest, best tasting produce, grown without the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, insecticides or herbicides. We don't use seeds that have been Genetically Engineered (GE), or that are of Genetically Modified Origin (GMO). We raise our produce right from the ground up using natural and sustainable farming methods with the goal of protecting our community's health and environment.

we really try to buy local if possible, we get a lot of items from horn o'plenty. please note that the horn serves breakfast and lunch, plus they have way better prices than lowe's on plants, flowers and herbs (although not a big selection like lowe's). anywho, back to the post...

it was a very pleasant morning, here's a shot of the boys. matt has a weird joker smile and tommy is too cool for school. rowdy chews on his finger.

this kinda cracks me up

all lottie wanted was a balloon, it was her number one objective. look at the joy.

she picked out an orange one

here's a shot of our half of the produce. it's early in the season and our pickings are on the small side, once it gets going we should have more than we can eat. and we only get what they grow and what is in season. one week we could get a ton of beets or okra so that is what we will eat all week. it's going to be fun. the hussars, cases and matt's parents are doing this as well. check out megan's blog, she did one on the csa and it's entertaining.

yummy eats

here's a random photo of lottie sue that night, she is covered in ice cream.

she calls it chockey cream

and on friday we drove out to rockford (my town of residence until the 6th grade) to attend john and amanda's wedding shower. their wedding day is next month and we are looking forward to seeing them get hitched. megan is making amanda's wedding dress and i must tell you how pretty it is - i have seen photos and it looks so beautiful on mander!

love is in the air

kristina, megan, candace (one of the hostesses,
it was her home), mander and moi

there was even live music, for reals - such a neat party!

pickin and a grinnin

the next morning i ran in a FOUR MILE RACE (yeah, you read that right) in oak ridge with amy, hilary, tara and manissa. the moment i walked in to get my packet i knew this race was different. for one, it was pretty small and b - there were some serious-type runners. and i guess they are there for every race but you notice them more when the race is small.

we came. we ran.

anywho...i totally came in LAST PLACE.

i ate everyone's dust

it really didn't bother me that much until i saw them pulling up the road cones ahead of me. they thought everyone finished and were about to really break it down. but they saw me coming and quickly put them back and i had lots of people cheering me on at the end. i shook it of just fine.

even though i came in last it's still great, i did it at least and i really am getting better/faster each week. next year i am going to run this race and i will not come in last. i hope!

we took grandma out for lunch for mother's day, afterwards we visited for a while. lottie sue found suckers there and was so so so so so happy.

here she is telling the sucker she loved it

grandma and rowdy hang out

i thought i would jot down more lottie sueisms for you. she is a firecracker and i really mean it.

* she LOVES reba (the tv show) and only likes the scenes with reba in them
* she tells us every morning that she only wants to wear BIG dresses (flowing, fancy ones), she also wants them pink
* she is somewhat obsessed with mermaids and will pretend to be one, she calls herself lottie sue mermaid
* she loves it when i make up stories about lottie sue mermaid or lottie sue princess, her face LIGHTS up - it's awesome
* she asks for the same lunch most days: peanut butter and jelly sandwich (cut in sticks), pretzels, raisins and milk
* she loves for me to play "lisztomania" so she can dance to it - she says it's her favorite song
* she loves to play "chutes & ladders" but doesn't play it right at all, she calls the blond gril piece "lottie"
* she also calls any blond barbie doll "lottie" and has named two of her baby dolls "carrie" and "olivia"
* one day she gave me her barbie dolls to play with then came over to get them, telling me i made them bored
* ernie is now her best friend, kevin is out
* she was playing cornhole with matt and he made one in the hole, she ran over there and said "wow, that's incredible!"

let me mention a few rowdyisms, he is just past the seven-month mark and is doing very well. he is one easy baby, lemmetellya.

* he loves bananas, they are his favorite but he doesn't discriminate much overall
* he cried the first time i gave him peas
* he rolls over quite well and is starting to his behind in the air so maybe crawling or scooting in next
* he loves bath time, he is MOST happy in the water - he loves to kick his legs and splash around
* he will try to grab anything near him, he loves his book - it's his favorite toy
* he is really into lottie sue, he smiles so big when he sees her and he loves to watch her play

and since it is mother's day i wanted to post a photo i came across of my mom. she is three here - lottie sue's age now.

little miss connie sue

it is hard to believe it has been seven years, but it has (sigh). this is my favorite photo of all time of her.

miss connie sue

ok, time to sign off...i'm leaving you with this photo, it was taken a while back - i think last september. i know i was working on a sewing project and matt came up with lottie sue to the bonus room to hang out with me. matt was on lottie detail while i finished up but i looked over and took this shot.

i call it "parenting 101 - what NOT to do."

yes, that's a plastic bag

alrighty, that's all i have for now. let's all have a great week and meet back here in a few days for more from the mowrers. until then!