Entries Tagged 'Yours Truly' ↓

i’ve been following along with jenni’s monthly updates on completing a list of 101 goals to complete in 1001 days, which has finally motivated me to begin my own.

yesterday i kicked off my own 101 in 1001 list by having lunch at the melting pot with my sister — #12: Visit 20 new-to-me restaurants in the Twin Cities.

the motivation behind going for lunch was actually because jason had purchased one of those online coupon things and it was going to expire before he could find time to use it. so… thanks, sweetie!

though we didn’t anticipate it being a two hour visit, it was a fun lunch! the booths are wide and tall, so it felt very much like we were dining privately. the food was all delicious, too!

i currently have 61 items on my list that should have 101 items. i’ve been trying to brainstorm, but i’m sure more ideas of things to get done will come along. do you have any suggestions? i think i could probably add some goals related to my professional life, fill out of the list of goals for home, and add some more twin city to do’s easily enough. what am i missing?

Brenda from The A to B of Cooking came over the other night, when I had no idea what to make for dinner. She proposed trading her cooking for my photography… um, yeah, of course I’ll take that trade!

Lucky for her, it’s pretty rare that I feel like making dinner — but I’m always up for taking photos.

I’m looking forward to your next visit, B! Yum!!

where jason’s family near des moines lives is about a four hour roadtrip, mostly straight down i-35. we got on the road in the early afternoon last friday, stopped for an unhealthy, fast dinner, and were hanging out with the family by 7:30. i decided to start re-knitting the ravelclaw scarf that i ripped apart last year, so i worked on that most of the evening while jason was busy catching up on video games and remote controlled cars and trains. it was a leisurely, quiet night, which was nice.

the next morning is when the christmas fun began. the boys were pretty excited for their gifts, so after lunch they got to work on sorting out all of the gifts from under the tree.

where’s my harry potter lego game?! (oh, right, it’s waiting for me to load it into my wii at home… i am not so good at finishing video games.)

of course, that’s not really a ps3.

it’s just a bunch of air pockets… and brown sugar…

and a few gift cards, too.

it looks pretty…

but it’s just toilet paper. (this family has a lot of fun messing with each other.)

jason is goofy and cute.

nicholas was so excited about his new mario kart jammmies, that he ran off and put them on right away. (you’ll notice them in photos to come.)

alex got a kindle, which involved a drive into town to find a wi-fi hotspot (dairy queen) to get set up.

i wrapped missy’s gift with a lot of tinsel and tissue paper. a lot.

renee found some neat earrings for me — made from the glass of a wine bottle!

nikki has been studying acupuncture lately, to accompany her mad chiropractic skillz. (she fixed me a bit before we left for home the next day.)

already putting the toilet paper gift to good use!

i think i meant to be taking a photo of renee, but this capture is pretty hilarious. i was giggling as i sorted through these photos.

i thought the bow fell off of my head right away, actually.

jason and i got logan a beer-making kit. logan loved it, but it made missy cry.

jaxon has a tinsel butt.

wine charms made from scrabble tiles — enough to spell out “laughter” (which would be an excellent play).

i wrapped nikki’s gift with a simple paper bag. which she was afraid to open.

but the inside was full of chocolate and minnesota wine.

this is a photo of jason and me opening a gift together.

yarn! hand-spun and hand-dyed, renee found it from a local business in des moines.

nicholas loves being in front of the camera.

and, of course, this was the first christmas without uncle fred. renee had some of his clothing sewn to make clothing for “papa” bears, which each of the boys received. (jaxon was not into having a photo taken, unfortunately.)

i think that’s a pretty sweet idea.

after opening all of our gifts and cleaning up, we celebrated jaxon’s second birthday. that kids sure likes applause!

and his laughter was infectious.

but then it was time to try the cake!

the detail of this capture is awesome. (photo credit goes to jason.)

yes, it was a very good birthday cake.

after jaxon opened his gifts, we had some fun with balloons and static.

some of us unwillingly (at first).

we rounded out the night with a game of apples to apples. always fun!

the next morning we took it pretty easy. renee always arranges a yankee christmas gift game, and i went home with a tray to make a wine cork trivet. some of us (me) were still in our jammies, though, so the camera didn’t make it out for that fun.

then it was back home to minneapolis, and now? christmas is really over.

it’s not quite over yet, because i haven’t posted my millions of photos here.

(this is chocolate-covered bacon, courtesy of aunt kim.)

during the actual christmas weekend, jason and i went to south dakota to celebrate with my family. we hung out with a bunch of my hometown friends on friday night (and mostly had the karaoke stage to ourselves), celebrated with my mom’s family on saturday (christmas eve), and celebrated with my dad’s family on sunday (christmas day).

other long-overdue posts on the way: the monday after christmas was for celebrating bertine and zach’s wedding. last weekend, we drove down to des moines to celebrate christmas (and nephew jaxon’s second birthday) with jason’s family.

that’s a lot of celebrating!

this is the face that hannie makes when she is excited but shy. she’s a pretty adorable kid!

have i mentioned the four shih tzus that accompany my mom’s side of the family?

we have been doing a white elephant-style gift exchange for quite a few years now. the premise is that you roll the dice and if you get a pair (or two pair), you can pick a gift (or two gifts) from either the pile in the middle or you can steal from someone who has two or more gifts. this year, dad tried to steal a gift from hannie and you know what she did?

she cried. of course. don’t steal gifts from the baby of the family!

jeremy got a jar of preserved lemons. what would you do with that?

pretty much all of jason’s gifts were for me (zebra-print snuggie, bubble bath, fondue set for two — i suppose maybe i’ll share that one with him).

i like this sequence of photos. dog in box — kid petting dog in box — kid in box.

these desserts may look the same but one was pistachio and the other was chocolate. i tried both, both were awesome.

later on christmas eve, after returning to my parents’ house, we had our own little christmas. hannie is very good at opening presents!

i gave bryan coffee and sausage for christmas. he claimed it was exactly what he wanted.

dad got a giant box of chocolate and a donut maker.

jason got a domo calendar and many home depot gift cards (and we got a joint home depot gift card) — time to get crackin’ on those home projects!

this face is for ryan, the sender of the “unicorn meat” for bryan.

actual bits of “meat” inside! too funny.

a couple of my christmas gifts. (have i mentioned i’m in love with my iphone? last night it kept me up 30 minutes after i meant to go to bed — this happens too often now.)

hannie would later tell me not to mess up her piggies.

can you guess what this gift from pop-pop is?

hannie’s first fishing pole! we all had to make sure she didn’t swing it into our heads for the rest of the night. and the next morning.

(playing with the bokeh kit, which has all kinds of fun shapes.)

i wish i looked less tired in this photo, but as joyful and exciting as it had been, it had also been a long christmas eve day.

bryan and jason helped mom frost christmas cookies before we all wound down and went to bed. (visions of sugar-plums dancing in our heads…)

we went to grandma d’s house for christmas day. bryan and dad made homemade ice cream, yum!

three kinds of soup for lunch: zuppe toscana, chili, and chicken noodle.

homemade vanilla ice cream and jason’s egg nog cookies for dessert. yum x 2!

we all watched with excitement as hannie opened her gifts from “owl grandma.”

this is the view from grandma’s house, so we also watched the sheep graze all day.

hannie and i played with my iphone. she wanted me to try on aunt deb’s glasses, too.

jason and i drove home to minneapolis from grandma d’s house. on the way, i introduced him to the jolly green giant in blue earth, minnesota.

and when we got home, the kitties got to enjoy their christmas gift from hannie:

i’m finding that my iphone isn’t quick enough to properly capture playful cats!

On Sunday I was thinking about the Big Three house projects that Jason & I have. I need to keep my eyes on the prize(s) and save money.

And then yesterday I went shopping.

My day started with a trip to my favorite salon, Sanctuary SalonSpa in downtown Minneapolis. I just needed an overall trim (short haircuts grow too fast) and also decided to get bangs. My stylist, Beth, decided to get the curling iron out while I was there. I always enjoy having fun hair for a day! (I am much too lazy to style my hair everyday.)

While I was there, I also decided to redeem some birthday certificates I had from Aveda’s Pure Privilege program. I got a bottle of custom perfume, a few trial-size bottles of their hand relief lotion, and after purchasing two “full-size” items, I got to spin a prize wheel — and won a free eyebrow wax! So, not only did this save me a trip to the Aveda store in Edina, I also got a few freebies! Best salon trip ever. I love it there.

After all of that girliness, I picked up my friend, Bertine, and we went to her nearby quilting store, Glad Creations, for their New Year’s Day sale and yearly coupon book.

A new hobby has been born, my friends. I picked up a few fat quarters for the future and some fabric with which to make some throw pillows for my living room — basic sewing, but will be useful in getting to know my antique new-to-me sewing machine and make sure its working correctly before I truly commit to quilt-making. (I have a pattern I want to make! And I’m accumulating more as I continue to read more and more quilting blogs…)

I also visited Jo-Ann Fabrics for a rotary cutting kit and scored big with sales there, too. It was a good day for shopping! Now I’m dying to get to work on some new crafting projects, but I don’t think I’ll be able to until next week. Major bummer, but something to look forward to!