7 years of togetherness

Yesterday was our 7th dateiversary.  Seven years since my first date with Ben or as I enjoying looking at it- seven years since my last first date.

I had zero plans to go on a date on February 9, 2008- but God had other plans for me. 

I had flown to DC to visit my friend Anjaly for a girl's weekend and to be her date to her company office party (she works in a hospital and they had their party after the holidays). 

But, on Friday (February 8th) Anjaly and I ended up at Ben's apartment hanging out with him and their other friends Jim and Anuja.  Ben and I spent about three hours talking and I left the apartment that night thinking about Ben and wanting to spend more time with him.

Saturday, Anjaly and I played tourist all day and went to the monuments and then got ready for her holiday party.  After her party, we met up with a bunch of Anjaly's friends (including Ben).  Ben and I sat together for hours and kinda ignored everyone else with us (sorry).

We have been together since that night and consider that our first date.

2008

2015

Ben, I love you.  Thank you the best seven years, and here's to another seventy!

Elizabeth's room update

We (Ben) rearranged Elizabeth's bedroom this weekend.

We have been wanting to move her bed away from the windows because she keeps pulling apart her blinds and has basically destroyed the lower half of them.  Our hope is that now she won't play with the blinds because her bed isn't right up against them.  We also wanted to move her bed because she climbs from her bed onto the windowsill.

This is what her room looked like when we set her up in her big girl bed .

This is what it looks like now:

 (notice the blinds)

 Yes, her chest of drawers is turned around, she kept climbing up it

Top of her chest of drawers

Hair bows!

Did/Does anyone else have kids that climb on everything?  Elizabeth has turned into the biggest climber and we have been trying to stop her from climbing on things that can be dangerous (windowsill, chest of drawers, etc.).  Has anyone found anything that works to keep your kids from climbing, or how long did it take to grow out of?

Happy Sunday!

National Frozen Yogurt Day

Yesterday, Elizabeth and I headed over to Menchies for National Frozen Yogurt Day!  From 4-8pm, the store was giving away frozen yogurt. 

I opted out, but Elizabeth enjoyed every. single. bite.

She picked her own frozen yogurt (chocolate) and then picked up a coloring page and her favorite crayon to color with (purple).

Thank you Menchies for a delicious treat!

Happy Saturday!

Ankle Injury Update: Part Four

We (all four of us) loaded up the car this morning and headed over to Kaiser for my follow-up doctor's appointment for my ankle injury. 

We met with a nurse practitioner that reviewed my injury, examined my ankle, completed some range-of-motion tests, and then checked for blood clots.

I still have a lot of pain over my medial malleolus, she did not like that.

My range-of-motion is improving, very slowly, but improving.

I do not have any blood clots (didn't know I should be worried about this).

So...

I get to wear the moon boot for another two weeks and I go back on February 23rd to be reevaluated. 

I get to continue doing my flexion/extension exercises and my straight leg raises. 

I was hoping to get out of the boot today, but I knew before we went there that that wasn't going to happen.  My pain level is still significant, the swelling came back two days ago, and I can barely extend my foot.  Fun times!

Waiting for my exam

Happy Friday!

Beer Cheese Sloppy Joes

I made a lot of new year's resolutions.  Most of them had to do with running, and since I can't run, I thought I would focus on some of my other resolutions which involve food.  :)

Tonight I made a new recipe that I got from Mix and Match Mama.  The beer cheese sloppy joe.

Ben likes beer and cheese, so I thought this would be a great new recipe to try.

All of the ingredients (except the onion) were things we already had in the house.  It was easy enough to add an onion to my grocery list last weekend and then we had everything we needed.

Here is our dinner: waffle fries, corn, and the delicious beer cheese sloppy joe. 

Ben and I both agree that these sloppy joes were EXCELLENT!  It is a really good twist on such a traditional meal and Ben described it as the most unique (and delicious) sloppy joe he has ever had.

Please check the recipe out if you want to try something new and delicious for dinner.

Happy Thursday!

Valentine's Arts and Crafts

For the past two days, Elizabeth and I have been working on a little art project for Valentine's Day.  Elizabeth absolutely LOVES art projects and I have been trying to come up with something creative for her to work on- having a holiday around the corner definitely helps.

Yesterday, I drew hearts on a bunch of different pieces of construction paper for Elizabeth.  I let her decorate the hearts (and I decorated a few) however she wanted.  We pulled out markers, crayons, and glitter paint and she had a blast.

Today I cut out the hearts and hung them up on our deck doors and our china cabinet. 

 Elizabeth posing with her Valentines decorations.

It is really starting to look festive around here.

Happy Tuesday!

Super Bowl 2015

Ben and I love to throw parties and welcome people into our home.  When I say love, I mean love.  It makes me so happy to make our friends and family happy by having them in our home and enjoying time together.  With that being said, we closed our home to guests on Super Bowl Sunday after the 2011 Super Bowl.

You see, we had an incident.  On February 6, 2011, the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Green Bay Packers.  And, with two minutes left in the game, a guest at our party grabbed the remote, paused the game, and got in a fight with her husband over DVRing Glee.

My husband is from Pittsburgh.

The Steelers lost 31-25.

We have not hosted people since.

But tonight, we invited our cousins over to watch the game.  I was so happy to see them as Jessica and I have been occupied with our individual reasons for being stuck at home.

Ben and I made a ton of food.  We all watched football.  And no one paused the game with two minutes left.

 Our table of food.

Homemade chili, chocolate chip cookies, queso, homemade bread, 

french fries, potato skins, and M&Ms.

 And we also had deep fried appetizers: mozzarella sticks, chicken nuggets, and ravioli

 Ben, Jessica, and Noah

I am so happy my team won the game!

Happy Sunday!