Christmas Eve!

It has been such a whirlwind of a week; I was more than happy to oblige the day off to hang out with my girl ;)

We ran a few final errands, which included delivering this bad boy [which is a day late in completion, but fortunately this one time, it's ok.. phew!]:

it's done!! happy birthday, andrew! 

Happy, HAPPY birthday, Andrew! I hope you love it! :)
I finally, finally, finally finished this thing, which took about three days longer than I'd anticipated, along with an entire extra skein of wool. Passing it along to Jessica for its actual gifting was both a relief and a loss; I've poured so much into this thing that it's bittersweet to see it go, but that's the life of crafting, I know... c'est la vie...

We dropped by Jess' studio to hand-deliver this bad boy, and caught her at the tail end of a client session. Sydni then had the chance to explore the likes of a fitness studio, and even got a quick sesh from its owner and personal trainer.

adorable. look at that form! ;) 

spartan in the making... 

OR....

aerial yogi in the making? ;) 

Hehehe... she's a gym lover! [Nope, not her mama's kid at all, huh... ;) pshhhh!]
We finished up with Jess and were on our way to complete a few errands and head home.

Workouts are exhausting, I'll give ya that, Syd:

zonked! 

Back at home, we relaxed into the evening and just before bedtime did our final preparations for the BIG day tomorrow. Santa has a lot of work to do, so we wanted to make sure he's properly fed and watered on his stop through here. She was so sweet!

come get 'em, santa! 

My sweet girl!! She just went down for the night, and I think it's high time we follow suit, so that we're not interrupting Santa's neighborhood route tonight.

See you then!

xo | cmd

Disney Princesses On Ice!

Today was the day we've been planning for nearly the past month: Surprising Sydni with a trip to see Disney's Princesses on Ice. I have no idea how I managed to go for weeks without spoiling the surpise; I'm absolutely the worst when it comes to harboring secrets like that. I pulled it off though, and we were dressed and on our way to The Nutter Center in Dayton.

she was trying to guess where she was headed

OH. Before I forget, I must take a moment to recognize the absolutely incredible talent of Allison, owner, baker and master magic-maker of Tu-Tu Sweet. [<< That's the Facebook link for you to go like her page, look at her pictures and ORDER. COOKIES. You're welcome.]

cookies, galore! 

^ Those volleyballs on the right were a special order for our team a few weeks back, and the Disney Frozen-themed crowns and snowflakes on the right were made especially for Sydni's big surprise today. This girl is good. I'll say it again: Friends & family, if you love cookies, call this gal. She's awesome. Thank you, Allison!!!

Anyway, we made it to Dayton and found our seats. There wasn't much happening yet, but with the giant, empty ice rink in front of us, we told Sydni what was about to commence. This, just before the squealing and tripping over all the names of princesses, was her reaction:

this is definitely an "icanteven" moment. ♥

So we settled in for the show!

the official "emcees"

beloved disney characters!
genie. lumiere. olaf. the fairy godmothers.

snow white's seven dwarves

lumiere & the dinnerware, in the
"be our guest" number 

fire-breathing dragon from sleeping beauty

Princesses!

the princes with the lovely ladies:
jasmine. belle. rapunzel. anna. 

more princesses!
tiana. aurora. snow white. cinderella. 

cinderella arriving in her chariot

A brief intermission... Did it look like she was having any fun? ;)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!!

And of course, the story - and sisters - that 90% of the audience came to see today:

anna & elsa! 

prince hans. olaf. kristoff. anna.
disney's frozen! :) 

finale number: all the princesses! 

WHEW.
A very special tribute to the man in our house, for driving us all there, but more importantly for driving our zonked-out tails back home. Just another reason in the book that he is the best.

sleepy candids... 

We're home now and ready to finally relax, after Disney and an incredible weekend all the way around.

What a happy little Sunday!

xo | cmd

And BOOM. Tourney!

This is pretty much encapsulating of "outside, today:"

rain. and then some more rain.
... and also some rain. 

Yay, rain! :|

Despite the drab and dreary skies, Elisa and I unanimously voted a lunch getaway to Park+Vine. It was the usual trip, but with an added, impressive bonus of this guy:


There were some folks sitting at P+V who informed me that they'd been there for over an hour, and this man had been doing this for that entire time. Elisa and I ate our lunch, and nearly an hour later when we left, he was still doing nonstop reps. MAJOR kudos to this guy.

And,

[want!]

♥Local!

After lunch - more-so after watching that guy workout for an hour straight in jeans.. in the rain, on the side of a busy street, I was more than ready for volleyball.

AND COOKIES!
[thanks, Jessica!!!!]

Holy cow. Here's a little PSA for anyone around the Cinci area who needs [or wants; let's be honest... it's the same thing when cookies are involved..] ahhhhmazing cookies! Her name is Allison, and she is amazing. > FIND HER HERE. <  Thanks again, Jessica, for scooping those up for us!

talented work of tu-tu sweet! 

They were so good.

More and MOST importantly, we ROCKED the tourney! Poor Becky was out for the night; she had an unfortunate run-in with a kid's fist at practice over the weekend, which is resulting in a root canal this Friday [recover QUICKLY!]. Jessica was scheduled to work late, so Chad and I were planning to be left at our own devices for the night. I arrived at Hahana and nearly ran smack into Tim as I walked in the door, and recruited him to join Chad and I until Jessica was able to make it down. With the single-elimination bracket on our shoulders, we managed to survive three teams before we fell in the fourth round. In our defense, that team ended up in the finals and may have won [we left before the end of all that], so at least it wasn't a fluke team ;).

becky. cori. chad. jessica. tim

Thanks again to Tim for stepping in to sub for us [for nearly 5 hours!], and to Jessica for bringing these awesome cookies. Becky, get better soon :)

I thought the night was going to end there, as we said farewell to outdoor volleyball for the year. I made my way home, and found that Rob had made dinner:

he's the best. ever. 

I'm a lucky, happy girl these days. Awesome job & co-workers, friends & volleyball team and of course my better half to complete the day. Sydni will be here tomorrow night, which will absolutely complete my week before we take a break from everything to see Rob's family for the weekend.

Phew! G'Nite!

xo | cmd

It's Uhh, Raining... Let's Cook.

Andi told us yesterday that our area would be under a flood warning until sometime on Friday. We had a hard time initially believing that since there wasn't a cloud in the sky when she said it.

..... We live in the midwest. Why would I have thought the weather would be temperamental??! It rained today. It rained a lot today. I came across a few pictures from friends who live down on the air force base; apparently there are several places in the area that look this way today. My thoughts go out to everyone who's been affected by flooding. It's been one heck of a week.

whoa. flood.

It was a craaazy busy day at work, which is no surprise. We managed to capture Linda in a moment of song, though, and that definitely brightened the day. It's a shame we never caught footage of her and I doing a duet on this song, but I really don't enjoy videos of myself all that much as it is, so this was just fine ;)

Work aside, I made a stop at the store to grab a few things and headed back to the house. Rob got off work early today, so he was already there. I made a start into dinner, as promised yesterday: stuffed peppers. It's been a long time since I've made these, and it's a different recipe than I'd used before, so I admit I was a little nervous. They came out just fine though; I have to admit, I was pretty proud of them ;) 

potatoes & peppers... yummm

Not too bad! And to follow it up, cookies! One of the guys at Rob's work was selling cookie dough for his kid, so we opted for a random baking session to round out the evening. I've gotta hand it to him, this boy's quite the baker. Oh, and SHOUTS to Kanice for the awesome ninjabread men cookie cutters! We put them to good use!

ninjabread men!

We had some photobooth fun, too. [//edit! I promised to add a few of the photobooth goodies. It's more like, a couple - two exactly, to be precise. Oh well. You'll be okay]

what...? 

.... you thought these were gonna be normal? ;) 

xo | cmd

Grubbin' with the Gobles | Joe's HOME!

I have an obvious affinity for alliteration; I think this week alone it's been pretty evident. Hope you're okay with that....

:)

So it's FRIDAY! WooT!!


sriracha. hot hot hot!



Jackie had invited me to dinner yesterday, via voicemail left on Wednesday, that I didn't notice until halfway through the day yesterday. To make that less confusing, the abridged version of that really just boils down to us rescheduling a dinner date from yesterday to today. I put together some veggies and took it to work, miraculously remembering to take it with me when I left. I made my way over to the Gobles for my second dinner date of the week, with some more amazing people.

JOE [remember him??] flew back in today and met me at the Gobles' to relax a bit, eat some dinner... and some ice cream, and discuss some final details for the big Towerview yardsale that takes place tomorrow. We re-introduced him to Sriracha sauce, which he now endorses, made a few last minute touches to the donation jar for local missions, and decided to call it a night. We've all got early starts tomorrow.

We thought our day was completely over, but when we walked into our house, we found this little guy, compliments of Jimmy & Mo, awaiting us on the kitchen counter. I don't know everything about life, but one of the few things I know as fact is that the people in our lives are extraordinary [and clearly thoughtful!!!].


cookie cake .. good call, prescotts. good call. haha :)

I'm on a sugar-high right now from this cookie cake, but I'm gonna attempt sleep anyway. :)
6AM is just around the corner; I'll see you at the Tower!

xo | cmd

Ninjabread Men!

How. Hilarious. So last week at Joe's Air Force going away gig, I had the chance to spend some time with Caitlin. She told me about some cookie cutters that she'd seen online and almost ordered for us; instead of gingerbread men, they were ninjabread men. I thought it sounded kinda funny, but she posted the link on my Facebook...

... fast forward to today, when this little diddy showed up at my work.


ninjabread men!!

peanut dragon! hehe

^^ oh, yeah, and they included a little rubber finger dragon nestled right on top of all the packing peanuts. It was pretty funny. Anywho- one of today's highlights definitely included the delivery of ninja-shaped cookie cutters. Once I put these to use, you'll definitely see phootgraphic proof of that, too.

Thanks, again, Caitlin!!

xo | cmd

Cookie Time!

I love that sometime long ago, someone decided that the appropriate edible precourse to Christmas involved cookies. Just sayin'. 

delivered to work, from karen!

Well, Monday flew by without much protest; good thing for that, seeing as how Mondays tend to be on the list of things with which I regularly squabble. Either way, the prime of this one came and went in civil fashion, leaving me with ample time to spend with Joe & Sydni once I got home. In the spirit of Christmas, and with the inspiration from the already-growing collection of goodies delivered to my work, we opted for a very appropriate session of cookie-making! 



cookie makin'

Our goal originally was to accomplish a few batches: one (or two) for immediate eating, and the rest for either gifting, or consumption at a later time. While I’m happy to report that we managed to complete the night without burning down the house or otherwise destroying the place, we didn’t quite make it to any left-overs.

cookie monster!

Oh, well. We had a blast, and that was really the only thing I cared about doing.

Enjoy.
-- The pictures, I mean. Not the cookies. There’s none left: I live with not one, but two cookie monsters ;).

Six days!

xo | cmd

Wednesday Schmednesday :)

So today marks the middle of yet another work week. I don’t have much to report, aside from a decent day at work and an educating evening at Wednesday Bible study. The day was marked by a few different small things that made me smile.

The little sugary snowmen that Diana brought back for us after her day of sales calls put a nice wintery touch on an otherwise snow-less day.

The more amusing thing was the picture my best friend Kalyn posted of her knitting on her lunch break. This was one of those days that I definitely wish we lived closer. It’s hard to believe we are that similar. Hah.

It’s been somewhat of a long day; I’m callin’ it an early night.

Joe starts mid-shifts this week. Blahhhhhhh.

xo | cmd