He's done!

I must take a moment and brag on my sweetie. This happened in the middle of December, but better late than never right. Kev finished his Masters! I was so proud of him because he has worked so hard. This next semester will be the first time in 2 & 1/2 years that he will not have to study for class (along with working full time). For most normal people, this is a very exciting change, and although I think he's glad for the break, I know he will greatly miss being in class. He's just one of those guys who loves being in school. I, on the other hand, was incredibly thankful to be finished with school and have never looked back.

Kev with his dad and mom.

Kev with a classmate.

Unfortunately, I had to miss his graduation because I was working. Such a bad wife, I know.

Well, tomorrow we are off to Nebraska to see my grandparents and my dad's family so I probably won't be able to blog for several days. I looked up the weather in Nebraska and it looks like it won't get above 18 degrees all weekend. I feel cold just thinking about it. So I'm off to pack all of my very warm clothing.

Truman's Christmas

Christmas came early for Truman this year. The doctor I work with bought him a few presents and he was very pleased with them.

He got some bandanas including this Christmas cows one.

A new pink bone...he's secure in his manhood.

He wasn't entirely happy when we put his bandana on.

The weekend!

This really is not that exciting, but I just wanted to tell you guys I am sooo excited for this weekend! Why? Well first of all, we have a whole lot of nothing planned...love it! Also, Kev was gone for 5 days on a silly work trip, and he finally got home yesterday. It is amazing how much I miss him when he's gone. My life is so boring without him! I am so very thankful for my sweet husband, and I'm so glad he made it home safely.

To start off the weekend, we are going to bake cookies tonight, wrap presents, and maybe even watch a Christmas movie. Gotta get in the spirit! I wanted to make sugar cookies, but Kev informed me he does not like sugar cookies and wanted chocolate chip. It always amazes me when I find random new things out about Kev (like you think I would have known he didn't like sugar cookies). I actually hope I'm always finding new stuff about Kev.

So, I've got my comfy clothes on, and I'm all ready to snuggle in for the night...

The valley

I remembered this song recently, and I thought I'd share it with you guys. I know it is an older song, but the words have really ministered to me through the years then more so recently.

The pathways are broken

And the signs are unclear

And I don't know the reason why You brought me here

But just because You love me the way that You do

I'm gonna walk through the valley

If you want me to

Cause I'm not who I was

When I took my first step

And I'm clinging to the promise You're not through with me yet

So if all of these trials bring me closer to You

Then I will walk through the fire

If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen

When You lead me through a world that's not my home

But You never said it would be easy

You only said I'd never go alone.

--Ginny Owens (If You Want Me To)

No matter what trial or valley you are going/have gone/will go through, there are so many things in the lyrics that are applicable. I don't know why He brought us here, but I can choose to walk through this trusting that He has a plan and purpose in it, or with bitterness and anger. Even though I would have never chosen this way, it has amazed me how much I have grown through this season, and I am definitely "not who I was when I took my first step." I love the last two phrases of the song. It helps me remember that God never promised our life would be easy, fair, or even good, but He does promise that no matter what He calls us to walk through, we will not walk through it alone. I am so very thankful that He has walked through this valley with us, and I'm so thankful for you guys who have also walked through our trial with us.

I hope this song brings as much encouragement to you as it has to me!

Lately...

Wow! It's amazing how you can stop blogging for several days, then it's so hard to get back to it. Then so much has happened it's hard to know what to post. I thought I'd post a few pictures of a few highlights over the past several weeks.

Our "nephew" Ben had his 3rd birthday. I love the look in his eyes as his candles are lit.

Noah was so cute but not completely himself because he had a snotty nose.

The boys' amazing parents and our close friends, Stu and Amy.

Our sweet friends Andrea and Andrew.

We also got to spend some time with our wonderful friends K.C. and Kinsey and their sweet baby girl. She is getting so big so fast!

She was making all kinds of squeals and laughing when we were at the coffee shop. It was so cute and hilarious!

We got to spend Thanksgiving with both of our families which was wonderful, but I didn't take any pictures. We are so incredibly blessed with amazing families and we're so thankful for them. You'll also be pleased to know Truman controlled the urge to mark on anything in my parents' house...I was so relieved.

Success!

For some reason, I always procrastinate with ordering Christmas cards. In the past, it slips my mind until the week before Christmas so I frantically head to Walmart to print a picture. This year, I decided I was going to be ahead of the game, and I just ordered my Christmas picture/card on Shutterfly. I feel so accomplished...it's the simple things in life.

Instead of trying to get a good picture with Truman this year, we just decided to put several pictures on the card. So much easier! Below are some of our attempts from last year. Truman loved it!

These are some of the pictures we did NOT choose.

This is one of my favorites!

Truman doesn't like to be held down...obviously.

Our final choice, even though Truman had sad ears.

Family fun time

Erica's parents

My mom and I

We had a special treat this weekend, because my parents came to Norman to visit. We actually had our 2nd annual joint family football/Using weekend. Wow, that's a long title. We started this "tradition" last year when both Kev's family and my family came to our house for a cookout, then the guys went to a football game and the girls went to USing. It was such a hit last year, we decided to do it again this year.

Kev and his dad

The moms

Seth and Lisa

Kev's amazing one arm shot...it's a gift.

The guys at the game.

The only major stressor of the weekend was...you guessed it...Truman. We had high hopes because he has been more behaved recently with guests, however this was not a weekend he decided to be on his best behavior. It all started when my parents walked in the door and he literally went crazy...jumping on them, licking, biting...it was total chaos. I like to think it was Molly's fault (my parents' chihuahua), but she honestly did nothing wrong but walk in the door. I'm not sure what came over Truman. Whatever it was, it was definitely not good.

Don't let this innocent face fool you!

I was nervously anticipating when everyone was here on Saturday, including our 2 year-old nephew. Truman actually behaved better than I was anticipating but did something totally unexpected. When everyone was gone to the game/USing, we just let Molly run around and she peed in our living room. The girls made it back before the guys, and as we were chatting at the kitchen table, I watched in horror as Truman hiked his leg toward the coffee table. I think I was truly stunned for a moment, unable to say anything, because I thought surely, surely he did not just pee in our house. He hasn't peed in the house since he was a puppy! I mean, seriously, he just learned to hike his leg and pee like this past month (we thought maybe it had something to do with getting him fixed). So I run over to punish him, and to my added horror, I realize not only has he peed in our living room, but he peed on Kevin's mom's purse!! What are the chances?! Of all the places in all the living room, he chose her purse. Thankfully we were all able to laugh about it, but we are definitely watching him like a hawk now! Life with Truman is never boring!

Fall work

As I posted in my last blog, I love fall. But today, I was reminded of one aspect of fall I don't like as well...all the leaves on the ground. Kev and I decided to tackle the big chore of raking and bagging the leaves in our backyard. One word...exhausting. We live in an older neighborhood so we love the big trees in our backyard, but it is incredible how many leaves they make. We tried to pretend like we were doing a roadblock on the Amazing Race (love the show), but that lost its glamor after awhile. Truman tried to do his part by eating all of the sticks out of our leave piles, but it still took forever.

So you'll be happy to know we pushed through and bagged all our leave piles. Except there are two very defeating things about raking leaves: 1) you can't get all the leaves so it doesn't look like you've accomplished that much, 2) one of our trees still has lots of leaves on it. Oh anticipation of more raking and bagging. Fun times!

Beautiful Fall!

Kev and I love the fall! What a great time of year...the weather is perfect, the leaves are changing, holidays are right around the corner. What's not to like? Recently, we have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather by reading outside on our deck. As you might imagine, Truman is thrilled to have company outside. He is so excited, that as soon as we get outside, he begins eating all of the acorns off our deck. I never see him eating acorns unless we are outside with him, and no matter how much we tell him no, he continues to eat them.

So not only is it extremely annoying to hear him noisily eating the acorns, but being the concerned owner that I am, it has made me very nervous. I'm afraid he will get a bowel obstruction because he has eaten so much junk and then will need surgery or something crazy like that. He is truly a crazy dog (after this post you might be thinking I am crazy as well).

Eating a large stick (in addition to acorns).

Finally settled down for a little sun-basking.

Mums on campus.

Did I mention I love the fall?

Cooking--Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've been completely fascinated by cooking blogs recently, one of those being the pioneer woman. If you haven't checked out her blog, you probably should...it's pretty amazing (thepioneerwoman.com). She actually was in OKC last week because she just released a new cookbook, and I went to her book signing. Before you think that is cool, we didn't actually ever make it to the front of the line because the line was sooo long! After we stood in line for a full hour, we realized we didn't really care enough to get her signature because we were starving. Who would have thought you could get so famous by having a blog?

So the issue I have with all of these cooking blogs I've found is although the food looks absolutely amazing, it is terrible for you! It might be my fatal flaw but I have a hard time even wanting to make something with a cup of butter, much less eat it. I've decided that some people can make these decadent desserts because they have self control. My idea of self control is not having decadent desserts in the house.

So for people in the same boat as me, I thought I might occasionally post good recipes I've tried. I look for 3 things in recipes:

1) simplicity

2) healthy (at least somewhat)

3) ingredients I can get at 1 store (I mean seriously, who has time to go to multiple locations? I'm thankful to make it to one place once a week.)

For my first recipe to post, I tried these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins this last week. I definitely did not come up with the recipe, and my sweet friend Amy actually reminded me of it. They are unbelievably easy and a great fall snack. Hope you enjoy!

Cake mix (either white or yellow, I used yellow)

1 can Libby's pumpkin

1 egg

Miniature chocolate chips (I used semisweet, as much or as little as you like)

Mix all ingredients together. I cooked them in a mini muffin tin, coated with nonstick spray. Just cook according to the cake directions and serve. They are a great size to just pop in your mouth. As a variation, you can substitute a spice cake mix and cook in a bundt pan.

October events

So, I've been meaning to post for awhile. I don't know how people do these daily or every other day posts. Our life is definitely not exciting enough! One exciting thing we've done is we went to the U2/Black Eyed Peas concert at the OU stadium a week ago. We're actually not really U2 fans, but big bands don't usually come to Norman so we figured we should take advantage of the opportunity. We downloaded their new CD and their greatest hits CD, which of course made the concert much more enjoyable because we could actually sing the songs. I've been listening to them ever since! It was so much fun! I've also had a very difficult time getting the Boom Boom Pow song out of my head and I only know one line...so annoying.

We also got to spend some QT with our nephew. He actually just had his second birthday, and he is so darn cute. He is going to be Wubbzy (don't kid yourself, I definitely had to look up how to spell that) for Halloween. If you don't have children like us, you may be thinking, "Who the heck is Wubbzy?" I know I thought it. Webbzy was definitely not in existence in my day. He kind of reminds me of Sponge Bob. Anyway, my mother-in-law made his costume and he loved it! He was like a little Sumo wrestler running in to people and falling on his chest because he had the extra padding.

He's so happy in his costume!

He loves his "Kevie."

I loved his tail! It is a hanger that she covered...so creative!

Lastly, I wanted to include a new picture of Truman because he is so darn cute! Almost every morning when we come to let him out of his cage, we find him totally covered with his blankets, including his head. His nose is the only thing poking out. So cute, our little dog child!

Austin!

So after Kev and I had our miscarriage, we received some great advice from another couple who had gone through a similar circumstance to plan frequent getaways. We thought this was a fabulous idea. This summer we didn't have to plan much because we got to go to California with Kev's family then Alaska with my family. So for the month of October, we decided to make a trip to Austin, the enemy's territory. We were able to stay at a bed and breakfast in Travis Heights, the oldest neighborhood in Austin according to the B&B owners, which was down the street from the capitol. Saturday morning we went for an amazing run on their trail by the river...there were tons of people with their dogs, strollers, etc. I wish Norman had something like that...Truman would love it!

Austin was a very interesting city. We thought we would post photos of several things we found interesting.

We went into a store called Uncommon Objects, and Kev decided it should be our goal to find the MOST uncommon object and take a picture of it. We thought this small, old mannequin was pretty unusual. Don't lie, you know you want it for your home.

There were tons of these huge, yucca-like plants that we thought were totally fascinating. Kev wanted to pretend like it was attacking him.

An interestingly shaped sign.

On S. Congress, they had these odd mobile homes set up selling food. So we decided to try the one that sold cupcakes. Funny story...while we were waiting in line for our cupcakes (yes, there was a line), a girl cut in front of us to ask the cashier if they had Wi-Fi. Really? Do you really need to ask? Does it look like they would have Wi-Fi at this place?

Of course we had to visit the University of Texas. This was their stadium, but the whole campus was HUGE. We went on game day so we saw lots of burnt orange and white. Boo!

We had a great time and can't wait for our next getaway!!

Shoes

So, Kev and I just got home from Austin. It was lots of fun, and I will definitely post further details later when I have more time to download pictures and such. However, a funny story came to my mind tonight that I wanted to share.

Let me prelude this story by telling you Kev and I try to keep our house clean. However, if you know me, you know the one area I tend to not clean as well is my bedroom. It seems worthless to put so much effort into a room very few people see and we spend so little time in. But...I am married to a man who without thinking, immediately hangs his clothes up as he takes them off and makes the bed EVERY morning. Now when I say every I mean every. We actually used to have arguments when we were first married because he would blow me off if I tried to hug him while he was hanging up his clothes. His bedroom cleanliness may have somewhat rubbed off on me but I guess not as much as I had hoped as you'll see from the story below.

On the way home from Austin, we stopped at Ikea to look for some good deals. We decided to look for some organizational items for Kev's closet, in particular his shoes. As we were looking, I proceeded to tell him that I had thought about getting something for all my shoes to go in my closet because right now, they're divided between a shoe rack hanging on my closet and haphazardly in my closet, with the shoes I wear most frequently hanging on the door. Kev, in a very innocent and genuine voice, said, "I thought you kept the shoes you wear on the floor."

Note to self...make more effort to put my shoes away.

Friends update

I know you have all been wondering how our time went with K.C. and Kinsey...since so many people read this blog. We had a wonderful time with our sweet friends, and I really do have a reason I have waited so long to write about it. I shamefully admit that I did not take a single picture while they were here...not even a single picture of sweet baby Quinn. Terrible, I know. So I thought I'd be sneaky and ask her sister-in-law to send me pictures they took of the weekend, and then post them on our blog. Is that cheating? Well, I still haven't received them, but decided I should just go ahead and post anyway.

It was wonderful to hold little Quinn...she is such a petite baby. She weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces (at least I think that's right) at her 2 month doctor's visit. She is in the 5 percentile for her weight, and the 0 percentile for her head. I love this fact because if you know Kinsey, you know she has a small head. I remember years ago Kinsey put on a beanie and it was soo hilarious because her head was noticeably small (I guess her hair usually disguises it). However, I must say I covet Kinsey's small head because she basically looks good in every haircut. I have always wanted to cut my hair short like Kinsey, but I definitely do NOT have a small head...unfortunately. Actually, I have asked many a hairdresser if they think I could pull off short hair and they always say no. Ouch! When Kinsey and I were in college, she actually had people approach her about being a hair model. What?! Does that actually happen? Not to me apparently.

While we're on the subject of friends and babies, my best friend from high school Michelle, actually just had her baby on Thursday! I actually got to hang out with her in the hospital with her before Baby was born...what an honor! Her husband was actually out of town when she went in labor, but don't worry, he made it for the birth. I actually haven't gotten to meet Baby yet, but hopefully very soon.

She's so happy she's in labor!

I'm happy too!

Friends!

I am so excited about this weekend! Our good friends K.C. and Kinsey are coming to Norman to visit (and go to the OU game and see their family). I am really excited to see them and especially excited to see their new baby!! She is only 2 months old but we haven't gotten to meet her yet!

Kinsey and I met our freshman year of college when we both lived on Couch 5. Kinsey actually introduced me to Kev, because Kev and K.C. were fraternity brothers and good friends. We both started dating our future husbands our sophmore year and got married our senior year. Then we both started graduate school the same year as well. I guess we have a lot of similarities. If I wouldn't have had a miscarriage, we would have had a baby the same year as well. We actually have not lived in the same town since college, but I still treasure her friendship! It will be so nice to catch up!

These pictures are from last year when they came to town to visit...and go to the game. They are definitely HUGE Sooner fans!!! Boomer Sooner!

I forgot to mention, we also got our sweet, crazy Truman from them. They have his dad and basically are the people who convinced us to get a Weimaraner. Hayes is slightly more calm than Truman.

The wedding

Over labor day, we made the long drive to Colorado Springs for Kev's cousin's wedding. I haven't been to Colorado Springs, or "the Springs" as the locals call it, in a long time, but wow, it was a way longer drive than I remembered. It took us about 11 & 1/2 hours to get there...maybe we made too many bathroom stops.

As I looked back over the pictures we took at the wedding, I realized I took very few. I think it was because I was tired all weekend because we had some late nights, I didn't sleep well, and I was completely off of my normal routine (I mean, who has breakfast at 10:30am?). We saw beautiful mountains and the garden of the gods all from the comforts of our car.

The wedding was outside and unfortunately it rained, but thankfully it stopped before Kirsten walked down the aisle (or across the bridge in her case). She did not seem stressed at all by the rain.

Kevin's Aunt Rita was also at the wedding.

Erin and Pam, Kev's sister and mom trying to stay dry. Kev's dad was officiating the ceremony so I didn't get a picture of him. All five of us shared a hotel room which was an adventure.

The reception was inside and was lots of fun! We actually left just as the party was starting so we could drive part of the way home (we arrived at our hotel at 3:30am...yikes!).

The funniest part of the whole weekend happened on Saturday night. Kev, Erin and I decided to look for a sports bar and grill to watch the game (which of course was absolutely terrible). Using Kev's trusty iPhone, we tried to find something close to our hotel. It took us to several dead ends, and Kev started getting more and more anxious and desperate to find a place so we wouldn't miss kick-off. We finally pulled into a place called Half-Time, sounds like a sports bar and grill, right? It looked a little shady so we sent Kev in to check it out. I don't think I've ever seen him look more out of place in his pink striped button down shirt and Sperry's surrounded by bikers and gangster-looking guys...and that was just our view from the car. Hilarious! He quickly made it back to the car and said it was definitely NOT a good place to watch the game. We finally found a place, and we were the only people in the whole place watching the game...which I guess ended up being a good thing. I'm just thankful Kev made it back in one piece!