This was his second dessert but the actual official birthday dessert—a chocolate peanut butter ice cream pie from Oberweis. It was tasty.
Owen’s second birthday dessert!
Category Archives: Photos
She still loves the dangly-leg toys!
I happened to run across a stuffed duck with long dangly legs and remembered how much Maggie used to love them. I figured it was worth a try to get her one now to see if she would still go crazy for it.
Yep.
Both arms were ripped off within minutes.
It was so great seeing her playful!!
Birthday cupcakes and brownies!
Celebrating with our bubble!
Some days I’m not even trying and look what happens?
I didn’t think it looked that great when I was doing it but the pics are fire!
I only kinda think I’m missing lipstick but I decided today was a gloss kinda day.
The birthday boy!
Yes, he’s in PJ pants because that’s the new school uniform.
Awwwww. Birthday hugs.
Happy #12 to the kid that made me a mom!
Wowza has the time flown… You are such an amazing kid I can’t wait to see what your future holds!!
PS It was near impossible to pick 12 pics so I went with just what was on my phone and it was still hard!
No one can push in a damn chair.
When the office throws up.
Since Tom will officially be working from home and we need the space, we are starting to go through the bins in the office…which means sorting has to happen elsewhere.
Etsy has everything.
Why yes, this is a petoskey stone mask.
I love having a handy hubby.
Not only did he install three toilets this weekend, today he ripped apart our old dining room table in order to make a new office desk! (We thought about trying to sell it, but we wanted to keep the chairs and thought that would be a much harder sell. E needed a desktop so…)
Plus now he has lots of pieces and parts for future projects!
And we found a hidden H!
Fixing a bagel problem!
When you get stuck with the bottom half of the everything bagel that has no flavoring on it…
Katie and the snow.
We got a bit more snow than I thought—-this is not then we’ve had all season thus far. Tom also realized he needs a bigger snowblower—-it was so deep it took him about two hours to clear the driveway and sidewalks!
She built a seat and drink holder on the side of the driveway. She also built a slide.
Not pictured: the mini snowman and the grave of the snowman that didn’t survive. I give her major points for creativity!
We’ve reached peak adulthood!
You know you’ve reached peak adulthood when you get excited about three new Toto toilets.
After renting for so long and having to deal with (forgive the pun) lots of crappy toilets, really good toilets were on my list!! And, frankly, I’m tired of all the plunging and these are supposed to be the best!
Of course the first toilet went in super easy—isn’t that always the way? Lulling you into a false sense of security. Tom raved about how easy it was. The next two weren’t horrible but they each had minor issues—including one seat that was missing parts so we are without a toilet in the master bath until the replacement comes in Monday (local stores don’t carry this brand and it would take Lowe’s another 7-9 days to send the replacement).
Now to see if they live up to their expectations!
Almost half of our energy use today came from solar!
This is so cool. I can’t wait to see what it is in the summer when it’s actually sunny all day long!
Overall we’re only at 21% solar since the install but it is winter. I love all the charts and graphs…but I really think the solar should be yellow instead of green.
Today was Tom’s last day in the office!
With all of his banked vacation time (and planning to start the Abbvie Skillbridge training next week), today was Tom’s last day at the recruiting station! Retirement is that much closer!
This is the gift he received—-it will go on his ME WALL in the bar.
This is how I like to work…
Under a warm laptop and a warm dog.
An hour later…
After I left for a phone call and lunch and came back and slid back under her.
Better them than me!
We got a bit of snow today so David offered to take the kids sledding. Yay!
Waiting for their ride!
It’s an unspoken rule.
I really need to sit at my desk and do some work but how can I deny this? I can’t.
I didn’t intend to take this picture.
I had to go turn off an alarm on Owen’s phone that he set for PM instead of AM so since I was there anyway…
Yes, he picked that color bedding.
Owen gets a new bed!
Long story short, a neighbor friend and I decided to switch beds. She had a Queen that due to previous circumstances had been cut into but was still good (but you couldn’t really sell it) and we had been talking about getting Owen a new bed…so we agreed to trade and she took his bed and headboard for her youngest!
We borrowed another neighbor’s truck and moved everything Clampett-style around the corner (they’re on a different street but only like 12 houses away).
I missed the pic of taking Owen’s old twin bed to their house but it was similarly precarious.
Owen had to help a little.
And both kids enjoying hanging out on it that night.
My first Halo!
I saw this while out today—I’d never seen anything like it and had to Google when I got home.
What do you think Michigan smells like?
I’m homesick for sure, but I’m not sure these are the scents of Michigan…but I’m not sure lilacs, horse crap, cherries, and fudge would be a good combo. (This doesn’t smell bad but it doesn’t really make me think of Michigan.)
I’m sure it won’t be the last time.
When you don’t pay attention to who you’re texting and you text your son where the ginger beer is at Binny’s.
Just 14 months and 7 days after we ordered it…
So way back in November 2019 we backed this awesome table on Kickstarter. It is the size of a bench (18″)…but expands up to 118″. Cool, right? We certainly thought so, so after much debate (since it was expensive), we did it. We also figured since this was their second Kickstarter they knew what they were doing. The estimated delivery was supposed to be the following month.
Without going into too much detail, it got pushed back a little at a time for a variety of reasons. And then they stopped communicating. And then they’d come out with more delays. Now, we know stuff happens. You have materials procurement issues, warehouse delays, a factory closure, or any other assortment of shit. But they were ridiculous—plus they weren’t communicating. And then…Covid. Which REALLY messed with things. Everyone was furious. Some managed to get their money back (it was a long and arduous process since by that time we were far beyond a credit card’s chargeback time limit). Some received communication but most didn’t. There was lots of drama.
And then fast forward months and months and people started receiving them…and it wasn’t good. Broken pieces, missing pieces, super soft/unusable table tops…and we got worried. We wondered if we shouldn’t try to get our money back. But we held out because we really wanted it…aaaand I knew how much work and effort it would take to attempt to get our money back.
And then we got the call! I almost didn’t answer it because it looked like a spam call—but I recognized the Canadian call and took it. And scheduled our delivery!! Three days later we had it!
So without further ado, here it is!
So now we have to get rid of the two tables we have—our original butterfly leaf table that we’ve had for probably 8-9 years plus the smaller temporary one we bought for this kitchen after we moved in. Normally that wouldn’t be hard but we need to keep the chairs… So Tom may end up cannibalizing the tables to make other things!
I can’t wait to have our first big dinner at this table!!
My house isn’t that cold, Bernie!
I absolutely loved all the Bernie memes after the inauguration…so I made one myself!
Charlie is loving life!
I’m Benjamin Button-ing!
You guys.
YOU. GUYS.
I know I’ve talked about the difference in my skin…but I happened to be looking at some old pics today and the difference was GLARING!
First check out my eyes. Yes I still have some wrinkles but there are fewer now and they’re less defined!
And then look at my forehead?! The pores have shrunk and the age spots have allllllllmost disappeared!!!
So don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here Benjamin-Buttoning. Yes, I just made that a verb. #47looksgood
Sometimes she is just too cute.
Happy Inauguration Day!
I felt today was momentous enough I needed to do a patriotic eye look! But hmmm… What red lippy to wear for this momentous day?
It was a tough call between Fly Girl and Hurricane Red…but I went with Fly Girl! Let’s get this inauguration going! (If you want any of the awesome products I used for this look, check out https://www.senegence.com/livinglippy!)
I’m not a political person at all, but after the last four years, I felt like I needed to watch in solidarity. And it was honestly more emotional than I thought it would be. At one point during the ceremony I was crying—and Owen noticed and came and held my hand (which made me cry a little more because the last time he did that was when he was little and came to hold my hand during one specific scene in Tangled).
Of course Owen being Owen he had a million questions but I was trying to listen to everything so I had to keep telling him I’d answer everything later!