A little "get to know me"

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:00am

2. How do you like your steak? medium

3. What was the last film you saw at the movies? oh wow. I don't even remember, but it wasn't THAT long ago!

4. What is your favorite TV show? I could never pick just 1. I love watching my shows.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Another tough one. I love where I live now, because thats where my family is. But my dream spot is more of a dream weather... I would love for it to be in the mid 70's all year round.

6. What did you have for breakfast? some coffee and a honey bun. yeah, yeah... not healthy!

7. What is your favorite cuisine? o0o0o. Pizza OR Chinese. It's a close tie.

8. What foods do you dislike? hmm... mushrooms mostly.

9. Favorite Place to Eat? Chilis!

10. Favorite dressing? ranch

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive? Hyundai Elantra

12. What are your favorite clothes? jeans and a tshirt

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Bahamas, Europe, Mexico, Florida, there are just sooo many places!

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? ½ full

15. Where would you want to retire? Not 100% sure.

16. Favorite time of day? evenings during the week and mid day on the weekends!

17. Where were you born? IL

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? I don't watch sports!

19. Took this question out since it was irrelevant for blogging.

20. Took this question out since it was irrelevant to blogging.

21. Took this question out since it was irrelevant to blogging.

22. Bird watcher? Not really

23. Are you a morning person or a night person? depends on the day

24. Do you have any pets? Sure do. We have a dog and way too many cats.

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? not really

26. What did you want to be when you were little? a teacher

27. What is your best childhood memory? There are so many, but I would say that my vacation to Wisconsin Dells and tubing down the Wisconsin River is a close first.

28. Are you a cat or dog person? I like both. I am allergic to both.

29. Are you married? Not yet.

30. Always wear your seat belt? Always.

31. Been in a car accident? Nope

32. Any pet peeves? Many

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings? Pepperoni and Pineapple

34. Favorite Flower? Roses

35. Favorite ice cream? peppermint

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? McDonalds

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? Zero times.

38. From whom did you get your last email? some type of spam.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Walmart. Or Carters.

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? not really. haha. I'm a pretty lame person.

41. Like your job? I do and I don't. I actually love my work, but the people I work with can be very childish.

42. Broccoli? My favorite veggie!

43. What was your favorite vacation? As of now, I would say South Carolina.

44. Last person you went out to dinner with? Dustin and Samantha

45. What are you listening to right now? nothing. im in the office and hearing myself type.

46. What is your favorite color? pink

47. How many tattoos do you have? one.

48. Took this question out since it was irrelevant to blogging.

49. Took this question out since it was irrelevant to blogging.

50. Coffee Drinker? oh yes.

Wordless Wednesday!

Swimming with my daughter, Samantha, and niece, Mariah

My very FIRST giveaway!!!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.
I am doing my very first giveaway! Not because some cool company asked me to, and not because I asked them, but because I really just WANT to. So I was completely undecided in what I wanted to give away. I will be purchasing something and giving it away, to a lucky (or I hope you would think you would be lucky) winner!

And this is the decision.

My giveaway will be...

a TEN dollar gift card. To YOUR choice of place (so long as it can be purchased in the Chicago area).

I know, I know... it's not much. BUT that is $10.00 that is FREE! Just for entering my giveaway. I am making this a long one though, because I want to leave plenty of time for entries.

I'm not gonna lie. My reasoning behind doing a giveaway is not only because I want to, but because I want more followers! So these are the ways you can enter:


Leave a SEPARATE comment and have your email address set up for email replies for EACH entry on THIS post

Mandatory Entries
You must be a follower of my blog. - 1 entry
Leave me a comment telling me where you want the gift card to be for, and what you plan to use it for! - 1 entry

Extra Entries
Extra entries are only to be done after the mandatory entries are completed.

Post my button on your site and leave me the link to your blog - 2 entries
Blog about my giveaway and leave me the link to the post (this one can be done WEEKLY! But be sure to leave me a link to EACH post!!!) - 2 entries
Tweet about this giveaway and leave me the link to the tweet! - 1 entry
Write about the giveaway on facebook (Either a note or status), and leave me the link! - 1 entry


This giveaway closes on July 23rd at 9pm CST. The winner will be posted on July 26th.
*This giveaway is only valid in the US and Canada at this time.*

Project Number 2

This is a "half way done project". I say that because even though I did everything I wanted to do, and even more so far, it still doesn't look quite right. These projects were meant to be fun, EASY ways to make Samanthas room look more "Samantha". Anyways, this is what I started out with:

and then opened:

Hmm... that fabric is looking pretty foldy and creasey. So we took out the iron:

Better.

We then put the fabric over the front of the board

and used a stapler to staple the sides:


Be careful to make the corners look good!

Sometimes it took 2 of us. Thank you dad for helping!

Trimmed the excess fabric from the back:

And I got 2 matching boards that look pretty good:

The plan was to use ribbon on the front, but it didn't work exactly as planned and I ended up using very thin rope-like elastic:



And the "semi-finished product"


My mom found some buttons and pretty stuff that we are going to try decorating with:


So I shall let you know how that goes. But for now, it will work for what I have in mind, which YOU will find out as soon as I get the chance to work on her room!

Blog Hop!

Fun! Join in and find new blogs to follow!!! Everyone LOVES new followers right? And I love following new blogs! Yippee!

15 Months!!!

Wow. 15 months. Whew! Where does the time GO!?

Anyways, we had her 15 month well visit this afternoon, which turned into a 15 month well/sick visit...

She is 24 pounds, 10 ounces and 33 inches long. She also has an ear infection. My poor baby. She also has a horrible cough and PINK eye since Tuesday. So we have, a cough, pink eye in both eyes AND an ear infection. But other than ALL that, she looks good!

I just can't believe how big she is getting! She is talking SOOO much now, although most of it is blabbering you can't understand. She does say some words. Well, she actually can say quite a bit, but I can't sit here and list it all, so lets just go with this: She has a very good vocabulary for being 15 months old. She is RUNNING all over the place and LOVES being outside. It is her absolute favorite place to be.

It actually really sucks, because it will be raining and she sits at the door and whines and cries. We took her out in the rain once... to show her that it was no fun being outside in the rain. Bad idea. She LOVED it and now expects to go out during storms.

It is very cute though... I haven't gotten the chance to get pictures yet, but Uncle Matt takes her outside after the rain (usually, sometimes it's during the rain!) and lets her splash in the puddles. She absolutely LOVES stomping around in the water.

And an update on her room:
I'm still working on it!!! haha. I know, I know... I said I was going to have this done by the time Summer got here, but I got busy and distracted! haha. I still have 2 more projects to do, although they are both easy and can likely be done in the same day. I just need to find the time to actually DO them! I can't wait to hang up her pictures that are shown here. Hopefully I can get it all finished by... let's set myself a goal here... 4th of July weekend/holiday. I get July 5th off work, so maybe I will make THAT my project day. So I have ALLLL day to do it! We shall see!

Anyways, thats all for now. Thanks for reading!!!

a REAL update

It's time for a blog that isn't all pictures. That isn't about my BLOG! haha. So. Let's just start typing and see where we end up, shall we? Ahem!

The last time I updated on REAL stuff was from our camping trip. And even then, I didn't really say anything of great importance or interest. So let's see what I can share with all of my "blog friends" that might be of some interest!

This past weekend was wonderful. My parents went to see my grampa (whom I miss very much!) and asked Dustin and I to stay at the house to take care of the dog. It was nice to be in a space where we were "on our own" again. I forgot just how much I miss having a space to ourselves, where I don't have to "be quiet" in the mornings while getting ready for work. We went over there on Thursday after I got off work and relaxed at the house for the night. We went out to dinner though, (Buffalo Wild Wings!!!!!!) since we didn't really want to eat all my parents food and we didn't go grocery shopping at all before hand. Dinner was delicious, and even though we had a minor MAJOR mishap, we enjoyed the time out.

Friday I went to work and Dustin was on babysitting duty. While my parents normally babysit my niece while my sister goes to school, he took their place. So Samantha had a great time playing with her big cousin, and they had a lot of fun. Mariah did happen to BITE Samanthas finger, but after that was dealt with, it was easily forgotten. When I got home from work on Friday, Dustin and I decided to order out for dinner. Yes, again! We ordered out Chinese and it was simply delicious!

Saturday was our day of "relaxing" and having a "date night". We decided to shampoo my parents carpet, because, let's face it... It really needed to be done. We mostly hung out around the house and cleaned the carpet and played with Samantha. For dinner, we decided to actually COOK something, so I headed off to the grocery store in hunt of some food. I ended up with country style ribs, BBQ sauce, corn on the cob, fresh broccoli, nice big baking potatoes, sour cream, cheese, and bacon. Oh yes. A delicious dinner. And pretty healthy, at least compared to Buffalo Wild Wings and Chinese! After Samantha went down for a nap, Dustin and I settled down on the couch to watch a movie. We were up until... 1:30am! Now, that might seem like nothing to some of you guys, but to me, that is ridiculously late. I am normally in bed by 10/10:30pm. So needless to say, Sunday morning I was exhausted!

Sunday was Fathers Day, and we headed back to our house for most of the day. Went out to dinner at Golden Corral. It was delicious and I overate by about 2 platefuls! We got back to my parents house late, but I ended up sleeping by 11pm. Monday morning I made sure everything was as clean as it could be, got ready for work and had a nice breakfast (fresh blueberry pancakes, left over from Sundays breakfast!). And then I headed off to work. After work, it was home sweet home.

Tuesday was my birthday! I unfortunately had to work, but the day was nice anyways. My co-worker friend, Julia brought me a nice card and a CAKE! It was delicious! Dustin and Samantha came to visit me for lunch, AFTER he brought her to the dr. His fear/concern was confirmed and our daughter has her very first case of the dreaded pink eye. But we went to Portillos for lunch and had a great lunch, washing our hands about 7 times throughout the entire lunch. After work, I headed home and where I was supposed to go to my parents house for a nice meatloaf dinner, we had to re-schedule because of said pink eye. So Dustin and I headed to the store in search of my "perfect" birthday dinner.

We got in the car, and he was driving. HE went a stupid way. Like, the worst possible way to go during rush hour traffic. Oh well. I asked him why and all he said was he had "ulterior motives". umm okay honey. But yes, the love of my life took me to BEST BUY, where he proceeded to buy me a Nook. One of those fancy schmancy e readers. Very exciting. We then headed over to Jewel to pick out said perfect dinner, where I found the most delicious looking steak. So we had Steak, baked beans, broccoli and a nice salad. It was the best birthday (aside from not seeing my parents at all). But we are seeing them for the "re-scheduled" dinner on Saturday.

Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and broccoli, I am waiting. I cannot wait for my absolute favorite meal.

Now what post would be complete without a few pictures?

This would be Miss Happy having a blast at grama and papas house over the weekend:


She curled herself into this VERY uncomfortable looking ball:



And this would be Miss Happy (maybe not-so-happy) upset about her very first pony tail:

Although once she finds something entertaining, the sad faces go away!

Fathers Day

Dustin on the day Samantha was born:


Around fathers day last year:



And this year:




Samantha was very blessed with a wonderful daddy. He loves her so much and she adores him <3 I love my family.

thinking about giveaways!

I really, REALLY want to do a giveaway. The only problem is, I don't know where I would even start. So what I'm thinking is this: I will BUY it. With MY money and then GIVE IT AWAY to a lucky winner. So my question to all of you readers is this:

What would YOU like to see me give away? (And be reasonable, I'm not going to give away a 50" plasma tv or anything!) haha

So let me know! And then hopefully in the next couple weeks, I will be hosting my very own giveaway!

Yippee!

I got a signature too, thanks to Danielle! Yippee! I have tried this once before, but it didn't work. Hopefully now it does!