Date night in

Awesome date night tonight with my husband. 

We started by making a fairly healthy yet surprisingly delicious dinner.

Honey-lemon-pepper chicken wraps and a Willy-Wonka-purple-blackberry smoothie. Delish.

Then we finally got to decorate our tree!!!

This first picture is the bird's nest we found after bringing it home...

We got our lights up a couple days ago.

And tonight we added all the lovely ornaments we got from Jordan's family.

To end the evening we enjoyed some hot chocolate, popcorn and a couple episodes of Parenthood.

Hermanos...

I just saw a picture on facebook of one of my Dominican brothers looking waaaay too old.  And that moment of sentimentality inspired a blog post of gratitude for all my many siblings. 

First of all, my actual siblings are the best siblings in the whole entire world. Now that we live in three different cities, I miss them more frequently than I would have been willing to admit years ago when sis and I shared a room and we fought all the time. I wish I could see every basketball and soccer game and performance of my crazy talented sibs, but I'm so grateful for the ones I do get to experience.

             

 

I gained a third sibling fall of sophomore year. I pretty much just love her and her hilariousness and I can't wait to hang out with her again next time I'm in the 'ville.

The next fall I lived in Jarabacoa and got a new younger bro and older sis. Era muy divertido cantando canciones locas con Bebo y mirando Friends con Leonela y mucho más. Que bonita esa familia.

And. I gained another Dominican sister who was actually born in the states. That crazy, awesome, exhausting semester would have been less crazy, less awesome, and much more exhausting without her as my sister. It was so great to see her recently to catch up a little bit, laugh, and dream about another DR trip.

After sad goodbyes in town, we moved out to the country. Con mis hermanitos. Tan chiquitos, pero ahora tan grandes, tristemente. Jugabamos beisbol afuera y tirabamos cosas entre los dormitorios. Les extraño muchísimo.

This summer I gained two more awesome brothers. Sure, I'm their least favorite sister on days the Packers play, but every other day I'm their favorite sister, so I'll take it :)

Husband, my broski, and new brothers. Love this picture.

Sure do love all mis hermanos.

Lovely surprises

I JUST GOT A BIRTHDAY CARD ALL THE WAY FROM NORWAY!

That pretty much made my afternoon :) Thanks Rach!

Birthday Date

I've known this for a few years now, but my husband has excellent date planning skills. Now, topping last year's birthday date was, for all intents and purposes, impossible, because he got me a ring and got down on one knee, but this year's date was SUPER wonderful. 

Here's the events of our lovely progressive dinner and date:

1) Mini pretzels and queso appetizer at BWWs.

2) Grilled chicken caesar salad at Panera.

3) Small florentine pizza at Monical's.

4) Strawberry and lemon twist cone at Krekel's.

5) Freaks and Geeks.

6) StrengthsFinder retake {for those of you Greenville-ites who care, here's my new list:
                                      Empathy
                                      Intellection
                                      Achiever
                                      Learner
                                      Developer}            
                                                               
7) Reading, relaxing, loving hanging out with my husband. Simply WONDERFUL evening.

Exhaustion

Welp. Today was super incredibly exhausting. Jordan and I were asleep for a nap within 10 minutes of getting home. It was my first day on my own now that the classroom is finally ready. (Pictures of my room coming soon). It truly was a great day. My kids were SO well behaved; I'm so proud of them. I think it was all the newness, they didn't even really have time to think about misbehaving, but they are great kids in general too. We're going to have a lot of fun this year. 

Today, to make sure all my kids were on the same page with their primary colors, we did a little science experiment which I stole from my preschool teacher aunt on Pinterest. It turned out surprisingly well. That meaning that I held their attention for a whole 10 or 15 minutes.

This past weekend was busy, but great. Sunday we watched the Bears win at the Giffords, while eating delicious lunch and desserts. As Jordan floated in and out of consciousness, he commented that it felt a little like Christmas, having so many people around chatting and being so full of tasty food. I loved it. Then my family helped out setting up my room and we got a late breakfast for dinner.
Saturday we had sweet seats to an Illini football game, thanks to Bob and Lindy. We went with Michael and one of his friends. They got a little bit whooped, but it was still a good time, getting Jimmy John's before the game, seeing a couple fights nearly break out in our section, and watching their sweet marching band.

We're getting so much closer to having the house clean, so pictures of that will be coming soon too!

Tuesdays and Thursdays

I love Tuesdays and Thursdays. Eventually, if I don't find other part-time work, our bank account might not like it too much...but I love having those days to chill, read, get work done, and just relax. 

It's nice when you need to clean out the fridge, but still get a delicious lunch. I had the last piece of bread with the leftover mozz and tomato we ate last night, veggie straws to finish up the hummus and a grapefruit which needed to be eaten. Yum. Put on some Gilmore Girls while I scrapbooked a bit and went through a couple more boxes. And sipped on my iced coffee all afternoon. Goooood day :)

And then, it got even better because Jordan got home and we had some pretty tasty lemony shrimp pasta. http://pinterest.com/pin/247064729528578520/

I'm pretty excited for this weekend. We're going to Indiana to stay with my new older brother and go to a friend's wedding on Saturday. I love going to weddings and it has been a while since I've seen one from the seats, so I'm really excited for that.

Hopefully my preschoolers won't wear me out too much tomorrow so I can have energy to stay awake to keep Jordan awake in the car tomorrow!

A couple recipes and a story

So, Jordan and I still have a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot to learn when it comes to cooking, but I wanted to share a couple delicious meals we have had so far. At least they tasted delicious to a couple of poor newlyweds. 

Easy Baked Tilapia

http://pinterest.com/pin/247064729528718466/

We pretty much followed this, but I didn't have Old Bay so we used Italian seasoning instead. Delish.

These we kinda made up. Mixed some sauteed spinach and mozzarella cubes into the turkey meat for our burgers, then put more spinach and sauteed mushrooms on top. 

........

So, today I had a careless moment, and as I was adjusting some things in the cabinet in our new house, [pictures coming soon] I knocked one of our coffee mugs out, broke it, and proceeded to cry. Distraught, I called Jordan and of course he told me it was just fine and all those reassuring things you tell your crying wife. So that was nice, but I was still mad that we hadn't even had a chance to use them yet, and I had ruined our perfect matching set of 8. So, I dried my tears and moved to the study where I hoped to be less destructive. Throughout the evening I tried to stop thinking about all the scenarios where 8 would be the perfect number of matching mugs to have in our house. 

Then, a while later my husband came home and asked what was up. I told him I was still upset about the mug and he proceeds to pull out from behind his back a beautiful 8th matching mug. I grinned from ear to ear and he told me about his adventure at Kohl's. I thought we would be stuck with 7 forever because my grandma got them for us on sale and of course you can only buy them in the whole dishware set. But, after explaining the situation to a kind lady at Kohl's, the manager decided to just give him the display mug. Way to be Kohl's. And thank you my activator husband for saving the day, yet again.