the meal of love.

g had a pretty rad birthday, in case you were wondering. he had to work late, so we stayed home that evening and i cooked him the meal of his desires, including meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and dessert (which deserves it's own paragraph!). i proved my love by making him meatloaf, which i have despised my entire life (meat! in a loaf! no thank you!). but thanks to my friend, i scored a brand-new meatloaf recipe that was heavenly and i enjoyed the meal of love just as much as the birthday boy, can you even believe it?

let's talk about the dessert for a minute, can we? listen, i know that picture up there does not look appetizing in the slightest, but holy mother, dessert was good. i wanted to give him everything he has ever wanted in one dessert, so i knew it had to include chocolate, hot fudge, caramel and salt and DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I DID, PEOPLE!!

i made him a mini molten chocolate cake, which is basically a tiny chocolate cake filled with hot, delicious fudge that oozes out when you eat it and then i served the whole thing with salted caramel ice cream. OH YES I DID!

i'm pretty sure i'm his favorite sister-wife, but don't tell the others.

we got our pics did.

well, sort of.

my brother took some pictures of us the other day and even though he isn't a professional photographer or anything, i am calling them family pictures! evie isn't looking at the camera in any of them and i had part of my shirt tucked into my pocket and never noticed, but you can't win them all!

thanks for taking our pictures jonny boy! we love you!

i tried to distract her with grass. she tried to eat it. taking pictures with babies isn't that easy, you guys.

oh, evie. nice face girlfriend.

this one could have been the one, except the baby. oh dear.

 

now that you've seen them, tell me, which would you use for a christmas card? please and thank you.

ps. i guess not everyone gets the title. it's like the term "i got my hair did" except "pics". right? yes!?

thirty and two.

32 things 
about the 32 year old.

1. i begged him to grow scruff or a beard for 3 years before he finally did it.
2. it looks dang good on him.
3. he has the softest hands and his feet aren't even the slightest bit gross.
4. he talks in his sleep every single night and always steals the covers.
5. he frequently gets out of doing the dishes by filling everything up with hot soapy water & telling me it needs to soak.
6. he always lets me choose where we are going to dinner.
7. he is the best person to ask for a favor because he will say yes and stay up all night helping, if that's what it takes. (many of his siblings, family members, neighbors and friends can attest to this, right guys?)
8. he is the ultimate handyman and can fix/make/repair/paint/stain/build anything.
9. i would have never guessed that about him when i first starting dating him.
10. the only thing he will take to work for lunch is leftovers (the pressure!).
11. he is easy-going, steady, even-tempered, reasonable, calm (basically exactly what someone like me needs).
12. he is a little bit obsessed with clean white socks.
13. if we have a baby boy someday, he wants him something reminiscent of a norwegian viking (!!??)
14. he is an incredible son. really and truly. he loves and respects his parents. he calls them just to see how they are doing. he helps with anything they ask (and lets be honest, he helps even when they don't ask).
15. 99.9% of the time he says no to dessert.
16. he never stays awake longer than 20 minutes into a movie.
17. he calls me "babe" and "baby" even though he thinks that's pretty lame. (he can't help it) (i'm glad).
18. he never stresses, worries or gets nervous about anything (can you even believe that?).
19. he was just a few points away from graduating from college with a 4.0
20. he was so stoked to meet mitt romney that one time. he loves politics.
21. he kisses me goodbye every morning even though i never wake up, respond or reciprocate.
22. he dreams of having a really rad garage someday and talks about it all the time."jess, the floors in my garage will look like this and i want the walls to be white..."
23. he is a really good poker player. our old big screen tv and the poker table at the cabin were both prizes he won in poker tournaments (that he won).
24. he looks forward to mowing the lawn.
25. he works a really demanding job, is in a super competitive mba program and has a big calling in our church and i still feel like he is always offering to give the baby her bath and clean up after dinner. somehow he does it all and i don't go without help.
26. i love the goofy side of him that comes out when it's just the two of us.
27. he makes me my favorite avocado omelet or a tuna melt anytime i don't feel like cooking dinner.
28. he lived in norway for a while.
29. he reads my blog, listens to my worries, takes me on dates, compliments my mothering and encourages all of my far-fetched dreams.
30. he blows raspberries on evie's tummy every time he changes her diaper and tickles her feet with his scruffy beard.
31. he is inappropriate and can deliver a really good dirty joke.
32. he is my best friend in the world.

happy birthday, love.
thirty two looks good on you.


xo, jess and evs

more, please.

can i tell you something?

 

my baby is getting too big, too fast.

i mean, she doesn't even need me to hold her head up for her anymore.

i want another one.

disclaimer:
to whom it may concern/terrify, this doesn't mean i am going to be having another one any time soon. i am not completely insane.

big gulps, huh?

question.

if you happened to be at the gas station at 12:42am last night and witnessed one pajama-clad woman wander in and purchase one enormously large mug you would assume the following...

a. she really loves diet coke. like, a lot. and this mug is the only mug large enough to fufill her middle-of-the-night diet coke craving.
b. she just found a turtle and needs somewhere to put it.
c. she has lost her marbles.
d. her freezer mysteriously stopped working in the middle of the night and she doesn't want all the precious breast milk she has stored to thaw, but she doesn't even own a cooler (who doesn't own a cooler?!) and the grocery store is closed, so this giant mug full of ice and bags of frozen breast milk is the only thing she can think of.
e. whatever the problem is, her husband obviously wouldn't help her.
f. all of the above

if you answered f, you might be right, except i didn't actually find a turtle (but i do love myself a diet coke before bed) and i don't think i've lost my marbles. at least not yet.

but yes! the freezer stopped working and g man was sleeping (and seriously not that concerned about the whole situation when i woke him, in case you are wondering) and i did MY BEST, okay?! i mean, i was concerned because of THE BREAST MILK! THE PRECIOUS BREAST MILK! the breast milk that i use every now & then when my baby needs a bottle at church and i'm wearing a dress that doesn't allow for nursing and just think about all that time spent making extra breast milk on top of the breast milk i have to make anyways, and DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW HARD THAT IS?!

we don't own a cooler (who doesn't own a cooler?!) and the grocery store wasn't open and when i wandered into the gas station as a last ditch effort my tired, tired heart whispered to my brain "just buy the freakishly huge mug already and never look back!".

and so, that is what i did.

of course, i returned home around 1am only to find that my freezer was working again and all was well in breast milk land and i was really really tired when i woke up this morning.

and now, a final question.

what the HELL am i going to do with this thing!!!?

i am pleased about the number of times this post says the word "breast". also "milk". hello brothers!!!

ps. name that movie.

the freakin weekend.

i put the camera in the diaper bag this weekend and tried to remember to take a few pictures.

i'm pretty happy with the results...

 this weekend we...

went out to dinner, rented some movies from redbox, went to the utah game and sat in box seats! (thanks burbanks!), ate a thanksgiving lunch complete with stuffing and pumpkin pie, got sushi from the grocery store (which is my favorite thing ever these days, because they have hired a full-time sushi chef and he is amazing), babbled too loudly during church, went for a drive up the canyon, took dad to the swings with us, got in crawling position, made white bean chicken chili for dinner and baked those pumpkin bars i was talking about earlier.

i also watched this movie twice and spent way too long on imdb reading about it and my head is still spinning.

anyway, it was a good weekend and it's just too bad it's already over. i'm spending most of today getting things in order for our london trip coming up in just a few weeks (and yes, evie is coming!), running errands and putting my house back in order. happy monday (if such things even exist? happy mondays?)...what are you up to?