Week Forty-Six: Date Night

We don't get out much. It's not that we don't like to, just that it isn't that convenient to do. Finding someone who is free to watch O, finding time, finding motivation to do something other than lounge on the couch in sweats... date nights are hard work!

This Tuesday however, a date night fell into our laps! Our daycare lady, Katie, had an appointment for one of her own kids. She either needed to drop O off early, or bring him home around 7. Since leaving work early didn't appeal to either of us, we opted for a 7 pm drop off and went out for an early bird dinner!

Since the restaurant we chose has happy hour in the afternoon, there were not so many old people enjoying early bird dinner as there were all kinds of people enjoying craft beer for cheap. 

Ward 6 is one of my favorite places to grab dinner when I'm in the mood for something good and different. I've always had great service, and the food is yummy. You can't really say anything bad about a place that has a meatball of the day special. Mike and I had some happy hour drinks and great main courses before trying out one of their desserts. 

I wasn't overly thrilled with the apple cake we had. I think next time I'd get one of their adult milkshakes instead. Both of our meals were delicious, though! Mike had ribs and sweet potatoes fried and I had some sort of delicious messy hot sandwich. 

It was so lovely to get out just the two of us, even if it was only a couple hours. It was a good reminder that a date night doesn't have to be a big thing. Being parents brings all kinds of guilt to the table about leaving our little one to be with just each other when we could be having family time. It's hard to shake that, even when you know that your marriage is an important part of your family, too. 

Much like the end of every date night, we left the restaurant talking about how we "really need to do this more often."

Here's hoping we do!  

Week Forty-Five: Garth

This week I got to see a concert that has been a long time coming. I grew up listening to country music and with that I grew up loving Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson, Faith Hill, and so many more. I also loved Garth Brooks. 

So. Much. 

When he was last in Minnesota I saw him, but I was much too concerned with being a sassy tween to enjoy it. I remember having a screaming match with my mom because I wanted to wear wide leg jeans to the concert, and there is a picture somewhere of me holding up my souvenir autographed photo and I'm pretty sure I'm mid-eye roll. 

With age I got all sorts of wisdom and perspective and all that, and realized that I was an idiot to not enjoy the heck out of that concert. 

My friend Cali and I have been talking about seeing Garth live for 10+ years. We promised each other that when he comes out of retirement we would see him no matter where no matter how much it cost. 

Then he opened his show in Vegas. And we totally didn't go. Because we had grown to be all sorts of responsible and couldn't justify the cost. 

Fast forward a few years to Cali and I glued to computers for 45+ minutes as Garth's Minneapolis shows (all 11 of them) went on sale. Cali got out of the waiting room first and scored us what we thought were decent enough seats.

Then we walked into the Target Center, and saw our seats. And they were awesome!

We had such a wonderful time and not only did I make sure not to do any eye rolling or fit throwing about my pants, I made sure to record a bunch of my favorite moments. Please try not to get sick watching my shaky video- I was much to consumed with dancing and singing and watching it not through my phone screen to pay attention to what the videos looked like! ;)

Week Forty-Four: All the Right Junk in All the Right Places

How do we have so. much. crap. ??

I know I have a weak resolve when it comes to a good deal, and I know we buy more than we should. But, still! Spring cleaning has never really been my thing. I'm more of a spring "Oh my god it's nice out!! Let's go outside!" type versus a spring cleaning type.

Example: I've never once cleaned the outside of the windows in my house, yet the lawn chairs are right inside the garage door for easy access.

No...I'm more of a late fall cleaning type. It is cold outside, which means I'm not missing out on anything by staying inside and sobbing over a pile of baby clothes that are much too small for my baby toddler.

This week's mission was to get some of the junk we have been hoarding in random spots into some logical, permanent homes.

And it was a total and complete epic fail.

• We put away Halloween decorations: win
• We shoved them into the closet on top of Christmas decorations that will need to come out soon: fail
• We dug out hand me downs in the next couple sizes and sorted them into piles in O's room: win
• We lost ambition and left 6 piles of clothes on the floor in O's room: fail
• We took all the too small clothes out of O's drawers: win
• We left those piles on the floor too: fail

So what I'm saying... is that this organizing project requires a tad more ambition than Mike and I seem to have. We'll get there. Eventually. 

I have all kinds of big plans for a toy refresh/switcheroo soon too, so stay tuned to see what my strategy is there. Or to laugh at me when that is a mess too. Either way. ;)

Week Forty-Three: Pumpkin Painting!

Overambitious gal that I am, the original title for this blog post was going to be Pumpkin Carving! 

HA. HA. HA. 

Not so much. As soon as I watched O throw one of the mini pumpkins across the living room I decided that painting a pumpkin would be plenty fun. Carving can be an adventure for Halloween 2015. 

It was a beautiful evening, so before painting we decided to take a few fall photos. O wasn't especially cooperative, but we got a couple good ones. {Just ignore the giant goose egg on his head from earlier in the day. And the fact that his hair needs to be cut, lol.}

<3

"Ohh! Heh-bee!"

Must...throw...all the gourds.

Trying to take the camera from me.

I wanted him to jump in a pile of leaves, and he wanted to play with the paint jars that I should have kept hidden until it was time to paint. In a stroke of genius Mike tossed the paint jars into the pile of leaves so O would jump in and look for them. While it was a great idea.... the result was sad and pathetic cries. 

We snapped a couple more photos and then began some outdoor pumpkin painting. An adventure, as we imagined it would be. O entertained the idea of painting the pumpkin, but he was more interested in mixing the colors on his plate.  

The end result was a paint covered plate, paint covered table cloth, and mostly orange pumpkin. Still super cute though. :D

Signing "please" because the paint wasn't magically on his plate ready to go. 

So serious.