i.love.kids.

for starters...it's been way too long since my last post. scott and I have been living in our new apt. without internet since may. we got it hooked up last week so i've been in facebook heaven the last couple of days and today i thought i'd update you on my life.





i have a new job. the BEST job ever! i am a nanny for an OBGYN in springfield. she is single and has two little ones that she has adopted.





Gracelynn (aka: gracie -this gets confusing at times because i also have a niece named gracie) will be two in exactly one month! she is usually pretty quiet, but has a very strong will. she gets really cuddly right before nap time and i absolutely love it! scott has fallen completely in love with her : ) its so sweet.





Daniel (aka Naniel as gracie calls him) is three months old. he loves to smile, has been cooing a lot lately and will stick his tongue out at you any chance he gets. i was really nervous about taking care of a newborn, but so far he is the easiest of the two because he mostly sleeps and eats.



some days being around them makes me want to have babies like right now, and other days it makes me realize just how much scott and i need to grow before we have kids.



i am so thankful for this job! its the perfect job for me and i am absolutely in love with the kiddos : )

love.love.love.
joy

jam. strawberry.

my mom and i made some strawberry jam last week. it turned out delicious! it was the first time i had ever made it, but surprisingly it doesn't take that much time and effort. it just gets all over your kitchen walls when it starts to boil!

here are some pics!

i found the cutest labels!!

the finished product : )

new adventure.

I am now a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant!

I joined Mary Kay to earn some extra income for Scott and I because he will be going back to school full time in a few months.

I can honestly say that I NEVER thought about selling Mary Kay before. but...I am really excited about this new adventure and am thankful to work for a company that is willing to spend all the time I need on training me and helping me start my own business.




joygreene@marykay.com
(937) 207-1775

Let me know if you need anything : )

love. love. love.

joy

some things i've been working on.

big oops...

So I've been debating whether or not I'm ready to share this story with the world or not, and scott thinks that its worth writing into Cosmo's "Confessions" section. So here goes....





the hubby and i have been married for a little less than a year and we really do not fight that much. we do, however, tend to have BIG blow-up fights once every 4-6 months or so (it's like it all comes out at once). and these fights are U-G-L-Y! we yell. swear. and ultimately hurt each other pretty badly during these fights because we do not fight fair. we know what hurts each other and we usually go there first in one of these fights. so needless to say, when you fight like this with your significant other (or anyone for that matter) you NEVER want anyone to hear you argue. ever.



but...as we were going at it i had my phone in my hand and i did not noticed that it dialed our old church (where my mom is the secretary!!!!) now, it was a sunday afternoon so naturally all of the phone lines went straight to voicemail and no one picked up. three minutes and twenty one seconds later i realize that i had dialed the church and all fighting came to a hault (for a few minutes at least).

i didn't know who would get the voicemail or what part of the argument they would hear. i was so upset. but we started arguing again and i forgot all about it. about thirty minutes later I get a phone call from a number that I do not recognize and I let it go to voicemail. It was a man from our church calling to tell me that he had received a voicemail of me and the hubby arguing and he wanted to see if I was in any danger and if there was a reason i had called the church!!!!



i didn't call him back. and luckily i don't know him very well so i had hoped that that would be the end of that horrible mistake.



the hubby and i worked every thing out later that evening...



the next morning i get three phone calls from my mom. i answer on the third call. she politely asks me how i am feeling (i've been sick lately) and if i had a good weekend. and i think i am in the clear... then she begins to tell me that she got a voicemail on her phone this morning of the hubby and i arguing. my adorable mother says, "was this a joke or was this real?" i wanted so desperately to lie to her and tell her it was all a joke. but i couldn't. shamefully i reply, "yes, mom. that was real". being the amazing mother that she is she politely explains that when you call the church after hours, any voicemail that you leave goes to three people (her, the man who had already called me, and the adorable 70-something year old who works as a part time secretary at the church!). she also says that she will erase the message and never mention it (or think about it) again and that she would try to erase the message from the sweet elderly ladies voicemail before she hears it.



ugh.... talk about feeling like dirt. why do these things happen to me?!

saturday.

well the hubby had to work on saturday so after going garage saling with my beloved sister in-law, i spent the day doing what every good wife does...cooking and cleaning! just kidding!!

but i actually did spend the day cooking (and i guess I cleaned a little too!)

this time i made homemade croutons, homemade dressing and some chocolate chip cookies -which i regret not taking a picture of before scott got home and ate most of them.

side note: if you have never made chocolate chip cookies using mexican vanilla you should try it!
It makes THE best cookies.

I of course did all this while watching a couple of Lifetime movies : )

here are some pics of my tasty excursions:




Honey Dijon Balsamic Vinaigrette


the finished product

mother's. day.

I have the best mom in the entire world and this mother's day in particular made me even more thankful for her.

We had lunch for her on Sunday and this is what I made ♥


fruit with homemade fruit dip


salad with gorganzola, dried cranberries and toasted walnuts


toasted walnuts (for the salad)


roasted tomatoes with garlic and thyme

a day of sitting.

My aunt works at a Solan about 40 minutes from where I live, but her boss lets her do our hair for free so I don't mind making the drive to get my hair done (plus, shes the only person who hasn't jacked my hair up). So I drove to Tipp City to get my hair done (which takes about 2-2 1/2 hours to do) and its just a lot of sitting! but its relaxing at the same time...


My sister lives in Toledo (about 2 hours from Tipp) so we decided we would each drive an hour and meet for dinner! Texas Roadhouse. Yum!

Well scott and i don't have the most reliable car and I'm over-due for an oil change so i decided to check my oil before making the drive. when i checked it...it had NO OIL! so i tried to call scott and my dad. no answer. thankfully my brother answered and told me it would be ok/safe to add a thing of oil to my car.

so...i'm a girl. i don't know anything about cars. i bought a bottle of oil (for 6 bucks!) from Speedway and started to put oil in. the funnel was too big and the oil was spilling a bit. so again i call my brother and ask him if the spilled oil is going to cause me to blow up as soon as i turn the car on. thankfully he said i would be safe! so after going through like 3 funnels I was finally clever enough to tear one of the funnels in half and make it smaller all together. voila! it fit! i got the oil in. on to meet my sister for dinner!

It was great seeing her (and baby Erika!) because we don't get to see eachother all that often.

So then I began the drive home...

It was about a 2 hour drive for me to get back to Springfield (and driving, for some reason, stresses me out!) So I made it to Enon (just outside of Springfield) where I THOUGHT my husband was playing softball that night and thought I would drive to the fields and surprise him. So I added another 15 minutes to my drive only to find out that no one was there (apparently they played in Urbana last night! grrr!).

So on the way home I had to pass a DQ and decided to treat myself to a Buster Bar Blizzard which is delicious. If you love peanut butter & chocolate you should try it.

thankfully scott gave me a sholder rub before bed last night because I was sooo tense from driving. uggh.


love.love.love.

lets go krogering...

Scott and I went to Kroger last night to pick up a few groceries for this week. I usually go without him because when we go together we are constantly fighting about what should go in the cart ...and what shouldn't (sounds like a 3 year old huh?) Scott usually wants the Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies while I would rather opt for the chocolate drizzled rice snacks or Scott wants chips and dip where I would rather us get veggies and dip. So, needless to say our trip through each isle takes a bit longer when we go together : )

But my favorite part of going to Kroger (other than the fact that its just right up the street!) is the check out. When Scott and I check out we like to scan everything first and watch the total add up and THEN we put in our Kroger card number and we love to see how much money comes off the total! We usually make a bet on how much money will come off the total. I know it sounds crazy, but its just one of those things we enjoy!

love.love.love

can't. stop. thinking.

I've been in this sort of "funk" over the last couple of days. I just can't stop thinking about my life and the things of my past; as well as the things to come. I have thought a lot about friends that have come and gone (and some that have come back again) and just a lot about relationships in general. I've been thinking extra hard about the things that make me the way I am...

Why is it that I push people away when they tend to need me the most?
Why do I get my feelings hurt so dag-on easy?
Why do I tend to pop in and out of people's lives rather than being constant?
What makes me so insecure?
Why does my husband love me so much, when i can be so hurtful?
Why am I the kind of person who wants to go against the grain, but usually ends up
becoming a part of it?
Why do I tend to be not as "deep" as the people around me?


Anyways.... just some thoughts that i needed to get off my chest and out into the world.

love. love. love.

.christmas is officially over.

we finally took down our christmas tree last week and i spent a large chunk of my day last friday trying to figure out why my vaccum cleaner was not working. after taking the entire thing apart (by my self!) i figured out that all the pine needles that i had sucked up earlier in the week were all stuck inside and allowing no room for suction power to clean the rest of my tiny apartment. so after losing so much time to the vaccum cleaner i decided to make the worlds largest batch of chocolate chip cookies...

the hubs was planning on having a bunch of the youth group guys over for "man night" before michael hapner had to return to chicago for school. so like a good wife, i cleaned the house (& wrestled with the vaccum) and then thought i would make a triple batch (because i know boys can eat!) of cookies with the new mixer that scott had gotten me for christmas. the bowl of the mixer is pretty big so i thought there would be plenty of room for all the ingredients....

things were going pretty smoothly until i had to add the flour... who knew that almost 8 cups of flour would be a bit too much for a kitchenaid mixer to handle? well in case you were wondering...it is! there was flour everywhere!! and i didn't want to start over with a new batch so i just kept pouring...luckily for me i was able to get everything in there (with yet another wrestling match with a household appliance) and the "mound o' cookies" that scott came home to that day was what i like to call, sweet victory.

sometimes this is just the story of my life...


love. love. love.