Girls.. Just Wanna BIKE, EAT & REDBOX

I really thought it was 1pm and that we still had to stain a deck when I woke up today. 

nope. 

And don't get me wrong, I was all the way down and ready to do some staining, but the sun was so bright at 9am that I thought it was well into early afternoon. Fortunately, it was early, and with the rain yesterday, there was no way we'd be doing any type of stain work today. 

INSTEAD, we opted to go for a bike ride! 

I didn't bring my bike, but fortunately, Jenn's parents have a few spares, so Nikki and I took up the offer and we were on our way in no time. I did end up with the taller bike, but major kudos to Nikki for wanting to try it! 

^ Nik, we weren't laughing at you... I mean.... ok, yeah, we were, but it was hilarious and you are a trooper for even wanting to do that! 

The ride in was beautiful, and although it was 16 miles each way, the ride itself was mild.

covered bridges :) 

We arrived in Yellow Springs, in the middle of a street vendor Saturday - these are my favorite, and I had to admit I didn't know YS had weekends & shoppes like it does! 

yellow springs, oh

merch & shoppes... & nikki! 

We ordered food, stopped at the brewery and then got ice cream.

And we justified each of these things with having ridden the 16 miles to get there, and the fact that each of us had done some version of a workout circuit in the past 24 hours. Haha..

pizza. brew. ice cream. #saturdaynotsorry

And Yellow Springs is especially dog-filled.

... and obviously i will. pet. all. the dogs. 

We finished up in YS and made our way back to Beavercreek - a slightly different but still beautiful little ride.

Jenn and I met up with Mikey for dinner and then decided that we were absolutely not doing a daggone thing after that. 

yes.

Well, maybe something, if an impulse trip to the store to buy snacks immediately following dinner.. counts. It counts. It totally counts. 

snacks, wine, redbox.
.... i mean.... 

Because we thought it'd be a good idea to sob ourselves into Saturday night... 

the shack

^ Holy crap, Sam Worthington... so many feels. 

Whew. Happy Saturday, loves!

xo | cms

Syd The Shopper

Am I crazy for thinking it's a slightly strange phenomenon that my daughter has been given money by me [not that part], and continued on to spend it as she saw fit?

Well.... maybe I am crazy for getting a little emotional about that - it just seems like something of a landmark. What it is really, is that we've been working very hard on the idea that she must earn money for non-essential things that she wants - i.e., dolls, headbands, etc.. We are at a point now where she is finally beginning to graps the concept that the world isn't a free place, and that she must be responsible and within her means when it comes to budgeting.

So ANYWAY, I sent her off to school this morning with $20 for her school's bookfair, and not only did she return with 3 books that she had hand-picked, but she had change. I asked her if she had leftover money, to which she replied,

Yeah, because I didn't want to spend it all. I wanted to save some of it for later! 

Am I a proud mama or what?!

proud of this girl!! 

[Remind me in 10 years when I'm 8 layers deep in prayer that this same daughter will stop spending my money.. haha.. ;) ]

Anyway, we celebrated the day and the onset of the long-awaited weekend with some homemade, healthy-alternative cooking. This one's a favorite in our house, even though this is only the second or third time we've done it. We mainly went for it because of the turkey pepperoni; let's be honest. 

homemade pizza! 

Oh, and that's vegan cheese. Don't shrivel your nose until you've tried it - and remember whose house this came out of ... I mean are any of us really surprised? Haha. 

Sydni shared the spoils of her bookfair with us tonight, which consequently consumed the rest of the evening. I mean,.............

................ STICKERS. 

Stickers. Everywhere. 

my little pony 

That's a wrap, folks. Happy weekend to you & yours!! ♥

xo | cmd

Mondays Are GREAT For Cooking!

I went all out yesterday [skip back a day & I'm sure you'll see... ] on a health kick. I'm bent on revamping my family's already moderately-healthy menu, and experimenting with some new things.

I started the day off with breakfast. A suuuper healthy breakfast:

lemon + honey + echinacea water, scrambled egg + avocado toast, chai seed & blueberry oatmeal

Yeah. Nothing like a complete breakfast overhaul. I added a spinach salad for lunch and am pretty certain I'll turn into Superwoman herself if I keep this up ;)

Work ended, and it was on home to get dinner started for all of us. We wanted to do a family pizza night, but without the traditional amount of unhealthy stuff in the kitchen. [Many thanks to 2Fit for the recipe idea!] Something I've never tried before tonight [although I don't know why!] -

veggie cheese & turkey pepperoni

I seriously felt as though I've been living under a rock, when today I realized I've never actually given way to these alternatives.

round flatbreads + 1 c sauce + 1 c veggie cheese + turkey pepps! 

she made them herself! ;)
& clearly didn't hate it afterwards... ♥

To avoid a complete shock of "health food overload," I obliged Sydni's request to finally bake a batch of the cupcakes [Frozen-themed, of course] gifted to her by Rob's dad & stepmom for Christmas. It was powder mix, so don't worry... raw mix hasn't been sitting around our kitchen since December. It was hard to justify having chocolate cupcakes on a night like this, but it was more the experience of making them together that I was after:

so. much. happiness :) ♥♥

ok.. so they're pretty good :p 

We also made some fruit & greek yogurt popsicles to offset the original offset.. 

notes for next time: use vanilla greek yogurt. 

To finish the evening, Sydni proudly tallied off her earnings of Pinkie Bucks - she's getting closer and closer to her goal of earning them all, and I could not be more proud of her! 

so proud of my girl! 

It's been a busy, healthy and productive night here at our little dwelling. Cheers to you & yours - we hope your week is off to a blazing start, too!

xo | cmd

All-Over Saturday

Hello, weekend!

I guess I should go ahead and disclose now that Taste of Belgium is currently serving their seasonal gingerbread waffles, and... well, GO.

yum! 

Nom nom nom nommmm!
We took our time today, getting through our to-do list at home. I had originally slated us a trip to IKEA for some Christmas shopping; Rob jumped the gun and went ahead and ordered everything online. That saved us both the drive there and the "fun" of traipsing through the pool of lawless goldfish that is the typical IKEA in-store experience. *Whew!

Oh, and Rob christened our house with the first fire of the year, while I started in on another knitting project today: This one's for Jess!

fireside knitting ♥

Stella was less-than-impressed with the fact that my knitting needles were getting more attention than she was, and have, for the past couple of weeks.

awhhh.. love you, pup-pup.. 

Poor girl. I promise that once Christmas is over, the knitting will cease to take up every evening. Okie? ;)

Trish invited us to join her and some friends in Newport, so on a last minute decision we obliged, meeting her and some coworkers at Hofbrahaus on the Levee.

:) :) 

Always a fun time (:
It's been a while since I've visited Hofbrahaus, and Rob's first time there, so we'll naturally be back. I couldn't tell you the last time I actually went to Arnies, either, but that happened, and was a blast in itself.

♥♥♥

We made a lot of good decisions today. We also made some not-so-good decisions today. This is the worst of it, and while it seemed a wise choice at the time, I'm making a note for next time [like I usually say] to never let this happen again:

yes... yes that is lucy blue's.... :/ 

All around I think that's a win. Happy Saturday! 

xo | cmd 

Christmas is... TOMORROW!

We were pretty unceremonious about Christmas Eve this year.... but given everything going on, I think we're okay. Aaaaand, Christmas is tomorrow, so really there's nothing to complain about.

Ya know what, I take part of that back. What we did today - cleaning, packing, relaxing in between - was actually a nice change of pace from the usual hustle and bustle of last minute holiday preparations......... and, I got to stay in sweats all day long. I am not complaining about that.

Plus, the pups got some well-deserved quality time hanging with Mom & Dad today. 

sasha & stella ♥♥

For dinner, we met up with Rob's mom & stepdad for a bit before we all headed back home [we'll see them again, tomorrow]. We got right back into pajama mode for a movie night on the couch. The only thing we're missing tonight is my minime, but I know she'll wake up to a Santa-filled Christmas tree tomorrow at her dad's, so I suppose it's okay. Plus, we'll do Christmas and see what Santa brings [again, haha] this weekend at my parents'.

my favorite snugglers!

See you... on CHRISTMAS!

xo | cmd

Falleyball Season!

It's gettin' chilly here in Cinci...

But that won't stop us ;)
It was volleyball night, again, and now that we're playing on a 6's league, we're getting a taste of how that works.... as a 4's team. Haha. Apparently, at Hahana, the 4's teams traditionally opt out of playing fall sessions; we didn't know that, so we renewed for the fall only to find ourselves as the only team on the 4's roster.

So they moved us to 6's.
... We still play as 4's.
..... & we won tonight. SCOOOOORE.


fall volleying at hahana!

It's our style typically to hang around Hahana until nearly 11pm some weeks, but with a private event tonight at Hahana and the fact that it was getting a bit brisk, we chose to call it an early end around 9, grab some grub from Village Tavern in Newtown, and rendezvous at Kalyn & Keif's new place for a couple of hours. Volleyball, pizza & brew - that's a no-brainer....

village tavern | newtown, oh

Just a couple more days and I'm off to see le boyfriend.....
Happy hump day, ya'll (:

xo | cmd

Unhealthy Eating, Made Simple...

I... Will... Make... This.
... Maybe sans pepperoni, since I don't eat it.
But yeah. Bring it on (: 

why didn't i think of this??

Thanks, Pinterest (;

[[yeah, it's been a while since I was last there.... doesn't change my affinity for some of those posts!]]

xo | cmd

Twenty-Seven!!

Oh my word.
I made it!

I think I’ve decided that my next endeavor in this earthly life is to cure Deceptive Birthday Syndrome. Allow me to explain.

You see, each year, this thing comes around that seems to get people excited when it has their name on it. [Duh, birthday.] So today is mine, and when it was all said and done, the day was wonderful, save for the fact that I am indeed getting older. Call it a quarter-life crisis, call it ridiculous, call it whatever you please, but sooner or later, I think most people would argue that turning the clock back wouldn’t be such a horrible thing. So, to solve the dilemma of actually getting older, I think I’ll start working on a way to preserve the customary fête – small or large – just sans the whole … aging part. I don’t think the odds are in my favor on this one, but hey, 27-year-olds can still dream, yeah?

There’s a special something about birthdays that will never fail to elicit well-wishes from an enormous chunk of friends, family, and facebook connections. Don’t lie; I’m one of those, and so are you! J I compiled just some of the blessings and wishes I got throughout the day, and I realized I am truly one fortunate girl. Be it a week, a year or five years, I’m grateful for all of my friends and extended family who took the moment to send annual congratulatory wishes via text, web, and/or phone call. Thank you!!

My first surprise was a box of donuts from Meagan; they arrived on my desk as soon as she walked in the door, and, although I did share, I have to say it was tough to decline eating every single one, in their delicious-looking state. Thank goodness for co-workers, hah.

Anyway, the second surprise came in the form of a text message from Joe telling me he’d left a work-related document in the backseat of the Murano. I went out to retrieve it, only to find a beautiful wooden decoration painted with my namesake verse, 1 Corinthians 13:13. [Yeah, for those of you just tuning in: I've since shortened my AKA to Cori, but post-adoption, I was given the name Corin, derived in this case from that exact verse, 1 Corinthians 13:13. Yenno, FYI.] In any sense, it’ll harmonize beautifully with the [Goodwill] frame I’d re-done with a picture of Joe and me.

For lunch, Diana treated me to my first visit to Peel, a relatively new but phenomenally delicious pizza dig in Edwardsville. With enough salad and pizza to fill up both us and a few takeout boxes, we headed back to the office. I’m certainly taking Joe there when we have the chance!

After work, I headed home with just enough time to change clothes before I was whisked back out the door for a double dinner date with Ryan & Stephanie Lopez at the Sushi Bar off 159. I’ll say this: that place definitely looks a little sketchy from the outside, but it is well worth the trip if you’re ever in the area. After dinner, we came back home with plans to watch a movie; of course Joe left me in charge of film selection, and as always, my answer: “Surprise me!” Well, he surprised me all right. He flipped on the T.V. and suggested we watch… maybe… Sportscenter?! Yeah, we have channels now, too! It’s been a long time since we’ve had satellite, and I’ve gotta say that while we were just fine without, it is a nice perk to have it.

That being said, it’s about time I call it a day. I had an excellent birthday, and for the time being, I’ll leave it at that and forget I’m inching my way closer to completing my third decade. We’ll cross that bridge when the time comes. Hah.

G’Nite!

xo | cmd

[Her] Last Day

[[Happy Birthday[s] to Jess Cochran & Eric Edwards, two separate friends of ours back home in Cincinnati! I truly hope today is a wonderful day for you!]]

Today was my office’s current FOC’s last day before she moves on to her new position [to which we assigned her, ironically]. We took full advantage of any reason to celebrate, and I was introduced to Imo’s. Imo’s is a pizza parlor-esque restaurant that seems to have a good reputation for reasonably priced lunches. The girl I’m replacing seemed to have a habitual craving for this place, so we secretly ordered the office a round of Imo’s for a group lunch.

Basically, for $5, they give you a 10” personal thin crust w/ one topping, and a side salad. I was impressed, for it being quick, inexpensive take-out.

Behold, Imo's: 



imo's | pizza + salad | yum.



What better way to find the best quickie digs than by referrals? While I definitely wouldn’t want to eat this more than once a month, I’ll have to, on one of those lazy, unhealthy days, introduce this stuff to Joe.

Back at home, I had about 15 minutes to finish the prep on a pasta salad I was to take to our evening small group Bible study at Pastor Ron & Debbie’s. It didn’t turn out half bad, and went over much better with the crowd than the Skyline dip we took last week. I don’t blame them; apparently that stuff tastes like pure magic, but is far less appealing in appearance. Oh well.



Do we have huge plans for the weekend? Of course we do. *Kidding.



pasta salad



Tomorrow = Base picnic. We’ll see how this goes in this ridiculous weather J

Who knows, I may even sport some sunscreen… we’ll see!

xo | cmd

Friday = Four



asics!

^ .. Because the ones that are sitting in my room now are a definitely broken in and don't have this crisp look to them, anymore. BUT, they're the same ones, and they saw some good action this morning before work. I figured that because Friday is so often considered that last day of the week, and every slip-up that happens that day is just filed in the It's Friday cabinet. So.. at about 4:45 AM today (take THAT, Friday), these little buddies had to wake up early and work for 2 quick miles before I headed to work. For me, knocking out a quick jog in the morning lends me a bit more energy throughout the day. It's just a matter of dragging myself out of bed, because I for one love.my.sleep.

Anyway, KP's mom's wedding is in 8 days! Kalyn & I have 2 songs to perfect, and a wedding gown to hem up between now and next Saturday. Should be a pretty eventful week next week. We will make this happen, yes we will.

Oh, and P.S.- Good thing I got the running done this morning, because this is what we ordered in to help us tackle the task of dress hemming: 



marcos | cheese | y-u-m.



Well, it's Friday, isn't it? :/

xo | cmd