What Time Is It?

For Christmas Mike got me a very nice necklace from the Iowa Artisans Gallery in downtown Iowa City. It was ”chunky” with light pink stones. The ever-so-practical girl in me, however, had a really hard time accepting it. Mike, being the understanding and ever-dutiful husband he is, went downtown to return it but came back with store-credit instead. Yesterday he took me back to the store so I could pick something out. This little doggy clock from Boss Brown Clocks made out of found kitchen items is what I decided on. It’s perfect in our kitchen and I love the whimsical look of it. I’ve been trying to “phase out” all of the chicken stuff in my kitchen and here’s the perfect start!

Happy Birthday!

9 years ago today, at 7:20pm, on Mike’s birthday and during the Orange Bowl featuring University of Iowa & USC, our little girl was born. Of course I couldn’t find a digital file of a picture from that day but I found this one from bathtime at 1 year-old. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top the birthday present Mike got 9 years ago! Maybe I should get him some new pajama pants because he still wears the ones he was wearing when this picture was taken!

10 Toes, 10 Fingers & a Claire’s Gift Card

See what you can do with all three? Thanks, Jayne!

Phone Call of the Year

Audrey just finished her favorite phone call of the year. Yep. Santa just called our house! She said she could hear the reindeer in the background and everything! Audrey told Santa she wants a horse and stable for her American Girl doll, along with another doll and that gosh darn Fijit Friend that she’s asked everyone for. One out of 3 things isn’t bad, right? And a lot of American Girl doll accessories is better than a doll for sure…aren’t they?

Needless to say Audrey is on cloud 9 and just laughed and said, “My hands are really sweaty right now.” Fortunately, I pre-programmed Santa’s number in my cell phone so his name would pop up AND had the quick reflexes to cover up the city where he was calling from because, UNfortunately, that showed up too!

We Believe

Ever since Thanksgiving Day, the little Elf on the Shelf has been watching over Audrey. He flies up to the North Pole every night to report to Santa and then comes back to watch from a different place in the house. Well, Saturday night Quiz forgot to find a different watching spot and Audrey was quite upset, thinking he had lost his magic. Later in the morning Quiz appeared in a new spot and had a note with him to explain what happened:
 

Just before dinner Audrey gave me this note to place in Quiz’s arms along with a little picture for Santa:

Thankful

It’s funny how a little thing like going outside to wash your sliding glass door on a warm Thanksgiving day can trigger a memory: Seventeen years ago I was at my dad’s house for Thanksgiving. He had just gotten 2 pups that I was VERY excited to meet. It was so warm that day we were outside with the pups for most of it. I ended up bringing one of those little pups home two months later: my Lucy. Lucy was ours for 13 years before going up to puppy heaven 4 years ago. Among the many things I am thankful for is the time we were able to share with Lucy and all the pups that have been in our family over the years. I can’t imagine my life without them.

Audrey & Lucy

Dog Days of Football Season

Our friends Josh & Jayne have season tickets to the Iowa Hawkeye football games. To each his own, I guess… They start their game days by leaving the house to tailgate at the crack o’ dawn so they asked Audrey if she would let their dog, Zoey, out for them in the afternoons. Today was the last Hawkeye home football game (thank goodness) and our last afternoon visit with Zoey so we thought we’d capture the moment in pixels…sort of. I’m not too good at self-portraits with the camera on my phone!

Thank You!

On this, Halloween night, and the last evening of the Month of Cynthia, I can honestly say it’s been one of the best “Month of Cynthia’s” I’ve ever had! This month I was lucky enough to: Have floor seats (thanks to an awesome brother in-law) to see Keith Urban (and Jake Owen) in concert in Milwaukee with my sisters, I can now say I’m a “Coach Girl” thanks to an early birthday gift from Mike, I no longer have a nasty-burned-all-over-the-inside toaster oven thanks to Audrey, and my boss even had a birthday BBQ lunch for me. I ALSO got to celebrate my birthday at least 4 times this month which isn’t too shabby. The happy birthday text messages started rolling in around 7:45am with the first one being from my nephew training to be a Marine out in California. I’ll never shy away from my birthday and love that it’s on Halloween. Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes (and those who didn’t but meant to). It was the best 40th birthday ever.

The Month Of…

Just in case you haven’t heard, my birthday is this month which makes it the Month of Cynthia. Okay, it’s the Month of Andrea, too. To celebrate, we headed over to Milwaukee last weekend to see Keith Urban (who else?) in concert. It was awesome, of course. There were a total of 12 of us who went. Eight of us stayed for the whole concert (6 girls and 1 guy). Too bad for those who left early because they really missed out.

The 2nd night of our 4-day weekend we celebrated Miss Emily’s 4th birthday. Okay, it’s the Month of Emily, too. The party theme was PINKALICIOUS complete with cupcakes that looked like they were taken right from the story (a really cute one, if you haven’t read it yet). The birthday girl, however, was a little uncooperative and unwilling to wear her Pinkalicious costume. Oh well.

The 3rd night was the celebration of mine & Andrea’s 40th birthday. There were drinks, lots of food, and a birthday cake with the number “80″ on it (40 x 2…get it?) and LOTS of candles. I don’t know if there were 40, but it sure was bright! Luckily no smoke detectors were set off.

It was back to work today and after another good night’s sleep tonight I should be recovered from the weekend of festivities and ready for another weekend!

The birthday girls (and our YOUNGER sister)!

Did I mention I have a guitar pick from the concert? Oh yeah. I’m a superstar!

The Freezer, An iPad & 2 Sewing Machines

Mike and I recently acquired a small, upright freezer. The only place where it made sense to put it was in our storage room. The only problem was that the storage room was already storing lots of stuff…mostly empty boxes from past purchases. You know, the boxes you keep thinking you’ll need them some day. Once I started purging empty boxes I found that we had LOTS of them. As I was pointing them all out to Mike he spotted 2 and said, “Wait. You have TWO sewing machine boxes? Do you have TWO sewing machines?” to which I replied “Yes!” He asked where they were so I told them they were (of course) in the vicinity of my craft table. Logically, he asked WHY I had 2 machines and suggested I sell one. I told him the older machine was the one I got before we were married to sew slipcovers for our couch & chair and since it was my first sewing machine I figured it would be better to save it for Audrey or let his mom, who is thinking of starting to take up sewing again, borrow it. The OTHER machine was an inexpensive one I got at Wal-Mart but it does a special embroidery stitch that I use for applique’d pieces on quilts – a machine I decided I NEEDEDafter staying up late multiple nights to make a cowgirl quilt for my niece’s birthday. I never had any intention of hiding these from my husband. I guess he’s just learned to stay away from my crafting area. Too bad I can’t say I stay away from his work table in the garage. I DO have extremely limited contact with the iPad though. Does that count?