I'd like to thanks all the little people.

Guess what?! I have received my first "blogger" award. I know kind of silly, but it's an award. A gift. Something someone has given me without having to enter any contest. So I gladly accept this award from my new friend and Valentine's Day exchange partner Dorothy @ Kitchen Koala. She is great. Always baking up something. She has tons of recipes, great pictures of her creations, and also belongs to a Paula Deen group. Even if you don't like baking or cooking go check her out because her blog is pretty.

Instructions for the award:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award.
2. Paste the award on your blog
3. Link the person who nominated you for the award
4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself
5. Nominate 7 bloggers or less
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominated.

Now for 7 things about me. (i'm not qualifying these as interesting)
1. I went to a Jewish preschool, Lutheran elementary school, part of my 9th grade year at a Church of Christ school, and the rest of my high school career at an all girls Catholic high school. I have been a member of the United Methodist Church since I was 3.
2. I hate the smell of cold leftovers, esp anything with tomatoes. (I make Coby heat up all left overs.)
3. I spent my formative summers working at the best place on earth, Camp Aldersgate.
4. My pet peeve is having cabinet doors open.
5. Coby and I met at the dog park. (I might make this into a Valentine's Day post.)
6. I'm scared to drive 4-wheelers and go carts by myself.
7. I require at least 8 hours of sleep per night but would take up to 12 if I could get it.

And the nominees are...
Audrey and Ashley @ Six Kids In Four Years.
Bonnie @ The Browns
Becky @ The Branches
Brooke @ Parenting from Scratch
Eve @ Today's Special
Kat @ Team Hills
Cara @ Almost Faye-mous

Accept if you would like (but if you don't want to mess with it my feelings will not be hurt).

Do You Know Her?

My cousin Audrey introduced me to the Pioneer Woman. She is great. Funny. Lots of recipes. Great photography tips and activities. I referenced some of her tutorials here. She has a group going on know about shallow depth-of-field. You can upload your pictures to her Flickr group. Here are a few of the pictures I am going to upload.

and now we thaw

The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and life feels like it might return to it's normal routine in the next day or so, maybe. Weather man is predicting the possibility of snow during the end of the week, and we all know how accurate these kind of predictions are. The snow caused a few problems for us over the last few days. I took my car to the shop on Sunday night to get some routine repairs done. My dad let me borrow his TrailBlazer for Monday. Waking up to snow I realized I would be going no where and my dad would need his car. Coby went from work to pick up my dad and take him to our house to get his car. With the weather they were unable to fix the car yesterday but I just called and they said it would be ready this afternoon. With me traveling between schools and Coby going into work at 6:00 most days it's hard when there is only one car. Do I sound like a greedy westerner or what? At least its a high MPG civic.
The power went out for about and hour yesterday. I wasn't at all surprised that we lost it but was surprised it came back on so quickly. We are known to loose power quite frequently and I think a few squirrels are to blame.
AND THEN...
I was sitting in the recliner yesterday and started to hear a "plink, plink, plink". I got up only to discover that our roof was leaking!!! We JUST had it inspected for insurance purposes and they said everything looked good. Huph. It was over the tiled laundry room, thankfully. It was an addition and has a flat roof that doesn't drain well. I put buckets and towels out. Coby came home and got up on the roof to shovel snow and poor hot buckets of water down the gutters. We'll see if insurance will pay for repairs.

Snowclumps

It is snowing, and THIS is NOT Arkansas snow. We're not talking a light little dusting we are talking snowclumps falling from the sky. The weather man (who we trust, right?) says to expect 6-8"!!!! I'm thinking we will be in school until the end of JULY! Here are some videos and pictures.

Chox being the pestering little brother that he is.


Tasso and his ball. (He was in a panic when we first went out because the snow had covered it.)


Chox loves to eat the snow!


I wish I would have sped up my shutter speed. Oh well is was cold.

it's a snow covered Meal Plan Monday

here's this weeks plan. and here is a great link to a "pantry" shopping list. a good starting point to your weekly shopping.

lemon basil salmon with whole wheat spaghetti

chicken parmesan pizza with salad

shrimp and grits with peas

chicken gumbo

hamburgers

frozen enchilatas

I only need a few things from the store and have what I need to make the salmon but who knows when I'll make it to the store?

Lazy weekends are the BEST!

Our weekend has been very low key. Friday night we went to our niece, Peri's, gymnastic meet. Super cute but good gracious they ALL (~40 girls) did their floor routine to the SAME song. It was about 60 mintues too much of a jazzy little instrumental number. BUT, Peri did great and had a wonderful time. There are pictures below. Speaking of pictures go here for a GREAT tutorial on SLR basics.
I have finished the Twilight series, and Breaking Dawn was definatly my favorite in the series. I finished the second half on Saturday (ignoring the dirty house) curled up on the couch. Now I miss my mortal, immortal, and supernatural friends. Anxiously awaiting to see them again on the big screen. 
We went to church today then out to lunch with my parents. We came home cleaned the house and now my lovely husband in preparing dinner (grilled salmon and vegetables). There are many superbowl parties being held today but Coby dislikes watching "big" games with lots of other people. Fine with me. I'm in my pj's and it's only 4:30.
It's almost Valentine's Day and I am so excited. I have my Valentine's Day exchange present ready to go as well a special something I am working on for Coby. I can't wait to post pictures next Sunday!I'm off to work on our dinner menu for next week!

What's your fortune?

Our Sunday School class is making it a point this year to be more encouraging to our pastors and church staff. I took the month February and wanted to do something cute for Valentine's Day. Here is what I came up with.
Cards to all the staff and pastors and cute little "fortune cookies".
My fortune cookies did not turn out as well as Martha's but what are ya gonna do? I think I should have used a higher gauge wire but I just used what I already had. These were very simple and turned out so cute. I slipped bible verses about love and a chocolate kiss into them.