I'm Back, with BIG News!!!!

So do you ever have something really really important on your mind or know a super juicy secret that you cant tell anyone about? And then, because you can't tell anybody you avoid pretty much all human contact because if anyone looks at you a certain way or asks a weird question you just know you will totally spill the beans????

Yeah, That's why i have been gone from blogging for so long.

Nothing seemed important enough to write about when I had this BIG GIANT secret brewing inside.

SO anyways- today is the day! i am ready to share with the world the hugely exciting news that has kept me from talking about any little minute details that i usually spill all over on this thing...

Pat and I are HAVING A BABY!!!!!!


I am due on December 18th
which means that i hit 11 weeks this past Thursday.

We got to hear the heartbeat for the first time last week, and it was sooooo cool. Just imagine listening to your washing machine: but this washing machine is twice as fast and the woosh woosh woosh noise is actually a little tiny version of the heart of the baby who will eventually be the toddler , who will eventually be the kid, who will eventually be the teenager, who will eventually be the adult that you are currently growing inside of you! It definitely made everything seem so much more real for us.

As if the heartbeat wasn't enough of a reality check the overall daily feeling of barfiness, matched with the multiple middle-of-the-night bathroom trips and the new and improved 9pm bedtime has really helped me to realize that times have definitely (already)changed......BIG TIME.

Pat and I are going to be parents. We will be in charge of a life.
whoa.

I can't help but wonder if this means that come December i will spontaneously stop crying like a little kid when i get upset? Will i naturally want to turn my music down and maybe not listen to Britney Spears with the same enthusiasm as before? Will I stop saying bad words ?
Moms don't do any of that stuff .....but i do. This is going to take some practice beforehand.

What i do know is that :
I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!! and FYI (in case you now suddenly have questions):

I do not have a preference for a boy or a girl...I will be equally excited for either one.

I can't think of any cooler Christmas present in the entire world than a new baby.

I can't wait to see Pat as a Dad

I can't imagine our little kid as anything but blond hair with green eyes and long legs. Pat and I looked like brother and sister when we were little sooooo, maybe i need a lesson in dominant and recessive genes, but it seems kind of likely that our kids will have the same little combo.

i have only bought a few things - but oddly they are all kind of boyish.

I am kinda sorta starting to show - but really i just look kinda puffy and fat.

i have no idea what i will wear to work when I start to get really big. I have a feeling that they do not make maternity pants for gigantically tall moms easy to find.

So anyways - there is my excuse. I plan to come back big time in the next few weeks.
Pat and I are headed to DC this weekend for some fun with friends. I promise to return with pictures and plenty of other updates.

jeeez

I have SOOOO much to say and sooooooo little time. I promise there will be an update tomorrow. Work owns my life right now :(

I'll try to redeem myself....

I have been a little absent from blogging lately. Okay a lot absent, but seriously I have been beyond busy. Lots of work biznassss and not as much fun biznasss.....but i do have the first installment of pictures recording the "fun" i have had as of late. I'll leave the "work" out of it though because - lets be honest - no one cares. There will be some vacation pics coming soon and maybe a few other little diddies if i could ever get my act together and upload the pics from my cameras.

So anyways, without further ado - I give you.....EASTER!!!!

(or should I say The weekend Amory came to visit) :)

Brace yourself for a lot (and I mean a lot of Amory pics). This girl stole the show this Easter. Her little purple Easter dress was to die for! And as if that dress wasn't cute enough on its own you should have seen her dancing to "we got the tweet" (instead of w got the beat) when you would press that button on the little Chicky toy thing next to her.

A little later in the day she changed into Easter outfit #2 which was a more casual option but still adorable nonetheless.

Pat and I had fun pretending that we had a baby. She loves her Uncle Pat!

When we got home from a wonderful Easter dinner at the O'Brien's Kristen and I took to the backyard to enjoy the amazing weather. It was almost 80 degrees, sunny and perfect.

I am so excited to have nice days like this again.

Even the Ice cream truck has returned to the hood. Of course we had to get Amory something.

She picked a rainbow sherbet push pop ( grrrr....for the record, i want to put an "r" in that word so bad...sherbet is annoying - sherbeRt - not so much) Umm regardless, it was a good choice!

post ice cream... Amory felt like modeling.

She gave us all kinds of cute little smiles....

and then we took her up for a bath in her adorable little tub that Amanda let us borrow and judging from the smile on her face, i think she was remembering her Saturday night rendezvous with the cute/slightly older man - Bo

I WISH i had a video of this.... cutest thing ever. I think they really liked each other. Amory could not stop giggling when Bo would look at her.

He even gave her a nice little kiss to seal the deal :)

This was such a fun weekend. I have a ton more pictures that include all of our friends that we had over, but i just haven't uploaded my picture yet. These were all of Kristen (my sister)'s pictures. So stay tuned for mine. It might happen. Maybe.

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter.

I know we did.

The best one in a long time :)

You have to try this!....

I recently went out to dinner with some friends in Cleveland. I had never been to or heard of the restaurant before that night, but i am sooo going back soon.....Reason #1- If you have been reading my blog for a while you may remember me making reference to one of my favorite snacks: Popcorn dipped in balsamic vinegar with hot sauce.....yep. I love it. And i thought i was the only one. Well much to my surprise this restaurant - Crop Bistro- had an unbelievable gourmet version of this little munchie on their appetizer menu. I could have eaten 10 pounds of this stuff it was so good....and as if that weren't amazing enough, when I complimented the chef on this delicious concoction, they actually came back and gave me the recipe!

So lucky for you....I am sharing.
I will say, that i have a feeling this one will be hard to replicate, but it is worth a try. It is so fresh and light and the flavor is spectacular!

Ingredients:
3 cups freshly popped plain popcorn
1/2 cup thinly sliced red and green pepper and red onion
pinch of salt and pepper
2 T fresh basil
1/4 cup fresh arugula
2T sun dried tomatoes
1T vegetable oil
3T balsamic vinaigrette
1/4 shredded asiago

Ingredients for Balsamic Vinaigrette:
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
3 T Dijon mustard
1T fresh basil (finely minced)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Dressing instructions:
Combine the oil, balsamic, Dijon, basil, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl. Using a whisk, vigorously mix until the dressing is completely blended and deep mahogany in color. Set aside in clean container or refrigerate until needed.

Popcorn instructions:
Prepare the balsamic vinaigrette and pop the popcorn. In a 14" saute pan heat oil until it begins to smoke. Add pepper and onion mixture, sun dried tomatoes and salt and pepper - saute for 20 seconds. Add vinaigrette to the pan.

Immediately add the arugula and popcorn to the pan. Remove from heat. Toss in pan until well mixed. Pour into large bowl and garnish with roughly chopped basil and asiago cheese. Drizzle with reduced balsamic syrup (optional)

TIP: Think super fast stir fry. Do not keep popcorn on the heat....it gets soggy!

Rrrrrandom Cell phone pictures (with explanations)

Ever get bored and take really random pictures with your cell phone? I do.
Want to see the pictures i take? Okay.
Here they are with a little explanation....and just FYI, when these were taken they were all going to be separate (amazing) blog posts that i created in my head .
Funny how things don't always happen according to plan.

This interesting picture was taken to show my ever-curious readers that (just in case you were up at night wondering...) I have a freckle on the inside of my lash line on my left eye. I think my mom has one too in the same place except hers is just below her lash line. I think. Maybe i made that up.

This picture was going to be a much longer post about how much i hate people that put their seat back on airplanes. I was in the very last row....i didn't have the option to put my own seat back and this guy totally pissed me off. I actually resorted to the equivalent of a 2 yr old tantrum and literally shoved my knees into his seat every 2-3 seconds until he put his seat back up. I was kind of joking around (we were traveling with friends) but then i was kind of embarrassed by how psycho i acted. Ohhhhh well. He did put his seat up (eventually)

Which was a relief because clearly my knees needed a little breathing room :)

...and here is the lovely ocean that i felt the need to take a picture of as we approached our destination: Naples, Florida

And here is me a few days into the trip....and a fewwww drinks into the night. Once again I find myself with my cell phone in hand thinking "oh hell, i haven't taken any pictures of this trip at all yet. Why don't i remedy that by making a weirdo nut job face and capturing a shot of me brushing my teeth"
I am clearly very sentimental.

ANd then there is this one. I truly risked my life to capture this moment for you.

I nearly came to a complete stop in the middle of a free way just to prove that....

Drumroll......Amish people exist.

That is a horse and buggy crossing an overpass.

Yep.

I took this shot for those hungry readers out there. I am newly obsessed with this little sanddweeeesh and let me tell you, if you had one you would be too. Roasted red peppers, grilled asparagus, portabella mushrooms, sauteed onions and goat cheese. And if those ingredients weren't enough for me to love this delightful treat....it is also called "the Californian" which makes me like it even more. I even feel kind of snobby eating it like when i order it i think..."oooooh i bet i am the first REAL Californian to order THE Californian today suckaaaaaa"

there is a great wine section at the market where the Californian lives.

...and a cheese section that reminds me of a fancy adult Costco. The samples are TO DIE FOR. i am shameless about trying every single one like 3 times over (while i wait for my sandweeeesh of course).

Ohhhh....and this pic.

Lets be honest. I posted it because i think my hair looks absolutely fabulous in it :)

I wont pretend that there is another reason.

I want my hair to like like this every single day....but it never does.

Happy St. Patricks Day.

TGIFA5

You know how people say TGIF all the time?
Well don't you think it should really be TGIFA5?
(ummm a5 is for "after 5")
Because honestly, it is Friday....and i am not feeling that thankful -yet.
4 hrs and 45 minutes from now - that will be a whole different story though.

Lots of fun plans this weekend! Maybe i will even take some pictures to document it all? That would be new and different.

It was obviously going to happen sooner or later....

I got my first "anonymous" hate message today. It made me laugh for a couple reasons....

The first reason being that it amazes me that someone would call me " a snot" for not wanting to be surrounded by a bunch of pedophiles. Truth be told, you "anonymous" blog commenter would REALLLY think i was a much bigger snot if i had gone into even more detail about how not only do i want pedophiles OUT of my neighborhood - In reality I wouldn't mind if they were completely wiped off the face of the planet all together. Call me a snot all day long......sure sounds better than a pedophile apologist.

Then there was the part about me being "sheltered from the real world." I certainly wouldn't classify myself as that -I am not even a little bit naive, but maybe the anonymous commenter knows more about me than even i do?...I thought about this one for a few minutes though and I realized that based on all of my previous posts about Doritos, and baby showers, and vacations and liking my friends ummm maybe i do give off a "nice person, never seen the dark side of life" kind of vibe. I guess she missed that post about "Inmate mingling" where i was also (once again) chilling with criminals......pshhhhh "sheltered from the real world" my ass.

And then the last and funniest part about the whole "anonymous" comment was that it really wasn't anonymous at all. Pretty much every blog has some kind of tracker that shows where people are reading from - i guess you didn't know that part.

Sooooo Miss "You are such a snot and so sheltered from the real world." I guess I must have missed that part about not being "sheltered from the real world" when we both attended the same "school of hard knocks" all girls catholic college :)

If you don't like me - don't read my blog, but i will also say that I think you misunderstood my intention with that last post.

Thanks for the laugh though...i'm not going to take it too seriously.