CHOBANI. Nom nom nom.

Behold: My newest morning fascination.

Chobani. Thank you for making my mornings [and afternoons... and sometimes evenings, too] nice & delicious.

chobani! ♥

> work.
> more work.
> dinner.
> glee.

Good night, bloggies.

xo | cmd

Happy Birthday, Courtney!



happy birthday!

Hey, hey! We got a new girl! It's HIGH time we hired an FOC for my office, and it came after weeks of fruitless interviews and disappointing evaluations. I finally managed to interview Courtney, and we collectively decided we would take the plunge with her. She started on Friday of last week, but we consider today her first official day. Plus, it's her birthday! Happy birthday, Courtney!

We celebrated by chowing down on some cream cheese squares and slavin' away in the absence of our bosses, who are taking the week down in TX for the Express ILC. It's gonna be a long one here, folks!

That being said, it's time for the Voice, so if you'll excuse meeeeee...

xo | cmd

The Voice [Mathai]



adam. christina.
cee-lo. blake.
* the voice *



I'm still battling some weird form of headache-stuffiness, and by the time church let out, all I wanted to do was sleep. I had every intention of doing just that, too, but those plans were thwarted by the recap of the past two episodes of The Voice. I'd missed the episode from last week, so I found myself laid up in the bed with every intention of sleeping, but not actually doing so. Dangit!

I listened to the final audition from the episode that I'd missed; it was from Sharon Mathai, who already has a few singles released, but was at the auditions no less. She completely aced an Adele song, and so I thought I'd share it with everyone.

I'm gonna try and get at least an hour of rest before church starts again. *Sigh.

Headache, be gone...... please?

xo | cmd

And Now, For the Tour [& Christmas Part II!]

fiona's | eds.ville

We realized this morning as we were getting moving for the day that we have done this sort of standardized tour for all of our visitors. Seriously. We thought back to Eric, who was the first to come and visit our new house, then JB, Lynn, Tim, Heidi, Paul, Jonathan, my parents, and now Joe's mom & aunt. We also realized that after this visit, unless KP & Sam make their way out in the near future, we should be just about done with our quick version of the IL-MO tour.

In honor of our last tour, we thought we'd spice it up a bit. First, we took them on base to show them where Joe works. We even made a pitstop by the Babots for a quick second, and they were able to see what base housing looks like. From there, we took a turn off the beaten path and  headed up to Edwardsville for a brunch at Fiona's. Now, keep in mind that up until today, I've only heard rumors of the superior quality of this little dive. Meagan and Rob frequent this place seemingly every other time he's here for her lunch hour, and Nancy speaks highly of it as well. So, we thought we'd give it a whirl. We were NOT disappointed. It was quite scrumptious, and at the very end, we ran into Nancy and Karen, who'd been there entire time we had, neither of us noticing the other party. Funny things. 

sandy. syd. joe | shadow of the arch from atop the arch :)

From there, we trekked into Saint Louis, being very mindful to avoid Soulard [mardi gras]. We found ourselves at the arch, and, at the request of our visitors, journeying up into the arch. We'd done that once before, the first time when Eric visited us. It's a nice chance to catch an aerial view of the city, and I suppose it's a must-do for any tourist not planning a trip back anytime soon. 

syd gazing out over st. louis

By the time we'd finished at the arch, we headed back home, ordered pizza, and got down to opening Christmas presents.

Wait.. what? 

merry [part II] Christmas!



Yeah, that's right. We weren't able to make it back to Ohio as originally planned over the Christmas holiday, so we had a very late Christmas here at our house tonight with just the four of us and Sydni. She made out like a bandit, and of course we all got exactly what we'd asked for during the pick-a-name drawing we do each year with his family.

It's been a great day. I hate that it was so short, but we are blessed to have our family.

xo | cmd

Visitors, Continued!

Friday was fiiiiinally hereeeeeeee [yessssss!!!!!]

With no small group in the dugout, and no other scheduled events for the evening, we spent the early evening just tidying up around the place before settling in for some relaxation time before Joe's mom & aunt arrived from Cincinnati. We patiently waited...


pack your bags & head for the dills' :)

 .. and waited...

... and waited.

Apparently, Sandy & Sis [the affectionate nickname for Joe's aunt] had gotten tied up in some traffice in Indiana, so they arrived much later than anticipated. I had finally given in to Sydni's whimpers of sheer toddler exhaustion and put her down to bed, and of course accidentally fell asleep right along with her. It's nearly midnight now, and while Joe's family did arrive safely, they and the rest of my house are fast asleep.

Woops.

We'll pick this up where we left off tomorrow.

xo | cmd

Clean Clean Clean!

I'm not sure where I was for the majority of today, because the bulk of it flew by so quickly. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, but it's the days like this that keep me on my toes for hours afterwards in fear of having forgotten to complete some crucial task. *Ohhhh well.

When work let out, it was straight home to clean up around our house, in preparation for Joe's mom and aunt coming to visit us this weekend. I'm excited to see them; it's been a long time since we had a good visit with Joe's mom, and I know she misses Sydni.

So clean clean clean it was, and then we waited.

This place is spotless!

*WHEW.

Company comes tomorrow. Yay! :)  

xo | cmd

I'm So Cheap..



$35?! are you crazy?
[[stay tuned]]

So I was en route to check out at Target on my lunch break today, and of course took a detour through one of the home decor aisles. I ran across this little guy, and decided that at some point in the near future, I am going to replicate it, or craft something very similar.
I feel inspired today.

I'll keep you posted, my dear Blogbots.

xo | cmd