a day to be thankful for...

How we spent Easter 2011

He

has

risen!

Hallelujah!

Today was a great day!

Charlotte slept through church like a champ... I am not sure if she got much from the message, but we will try explaining Easter to her next year! 

 

After church we had some of our favorite people over and yes they did BYOM (refer to previous post)!  We had chicken, hot dogs, bratwurst, steaks, pork kabobs...the works!

Thanks to the pioneer woman, all the sides turned out great!  My personal favorite was the carrots and the corn...simple, easy and delicious!

At the end of the day we were all stuffed!

and tired

We hope everyone had a great Easter with your loved ones!

-melissa

spring is in the air

To me nothing quite says spring like warm weather, baseball, green grass and Easter.  Luckily this week we got to experience all four!  

I have been kept busy this week trying to get a good nice walk in every morning among a number of things.  The good nice kind of walk that makes you sweat, put a catch in your side, makes the gnats swarm because you smell so bad.  The kind that can knock off some major baby belly!  I also waited until the last minute to finish Benjamin’s Bunny Bowling that we are sending him for Easter... surprise, surprise!  I am not quite sure what he will do with the very dense bunnies.  I can easily see them being turned into weapons or even the softball for that matter, but that is for mommy Rachel to deal with.  Our job as Auntie and Uncle is just to spoil him right and send him surprises in the mail!

In anticipation for our very elegant Easter dinner I have been trying to prepare a menu.  In past years Easter has been a completely exhausting day with early mornings and services that need serving.  With that in mind and still wanting to spend time with our loved ones we have invented...drumroll please...BYOM.  Go ahead and try to figure out what that could stand for- Brighten Your Own Meal or maybe Beautiful Yams Over Macaroons...not here, BYOM stands for Bring Your Own Meat (said in your most redneck accent).  It really seems to work for us, our friends bring their own meat for Jay to grill and we provide the sides and dessert.  Now, I have had some time late at night to peruse the web looking for yummy recipe ideas.  And what better site can I find than The Pioneer Woman.  The site has great ideas, comical stories and beautiful photos that seem to really entertain me late at night.  I understand that even if I follow every recipe to every detail my food will still not turn out as delicious looking as hers (just like bunnies pictured above).  Below you can find at least what I am aiming for: a yummy yet simple layered salad, some doctored up mashed potatoes, and roasted carrots.  Dessert is still undetermined and I really should come up with another side seeing how my lovely husband is allergic to two of my selections thus far.  Anyways, I will give it my best go and I am sure everyone will have a fine time.  It can not be any worse than the year that we had cornish hens, they did not completely cook, we served them bloody and I walked around the table demanding everyone throw their Easter dinner in the trash. True story.  Really.  Don’t you want to come over for Easter dinner at the Hess House! Ahhh, Easter memories!

As for the baseball and grass as mentioned prior, we will not be getting to experience baseball for a little while longer...sigh, and as for that grass, Jay still thinks that the mower is still too heavy and difficult for me to push...teeheehee!

-melissa

a week with grammy!

Charlotte and I sadly dropped Grammy off at the airport very early this morning.  Although we had a great week we were very sad to see her go!  Grammy took care of us and entertained us while Jay was out of town. 

Below are some of our favorite moments this past week with her!

early morning cuddles

walking our socks off

working on quilting blocks

enjoying a meal

visiting Lewis Ginter

enjoying some good home cookin!

We also just got to enjoy each others company.  It was nice that Grammy got to see Charlotte’s growing personality, she will never be this young again and it was great that Grammy got to spend some time with her while she is this young. We had time to have good long talks, get to laugh over silly things and of course visit Sweet Frog a number of times!  I know that time with all three of us is time to be treasured and we loved every minute!

Thanks Grammy for coming to visit, taking care and loving on us over this past week!  We will miss you and look forward to seeing you in July!

-melissa

postpartum pillage

Around a year ago we decided that we wanted to start trying to get pregnant.  Like most people know, when I set my mind to something I get slightly obsessive.  Combine that with always liking a good set of rules and you have my distorted eating habits for the past year.  Pre-pregnancy I cut out alcohol and caffeine, which was not that bad expect for when we had a girl night or book club and I did not get to enjoy a nice glass of white wine.  The caffeine was a little different with a group of forty five spring infused ten year olds, but once I got over the main addiction I was okay.  

Once we found out I was pregnant and we met with the nutritionalist at the doctors office and it was a whole different story.  The items that we (Jay, myself and the doctor) thought that would be best to cut out of my diet was enormous.  The list included: soft cheeses, hot dogs, rare meats, soft serve ice cream, lunch meat, and that is just to name a few.

Well I am no longer pregnant, no embryo to protect, no toxic weird food chemicals can get to her now...so watch out...a postpartum pillage is about to happen.

Today it happened, Jay took me on a field trip and we pillaged Mechanicsville and all it had to offer!  Again because we like a good set of rules we have listened to everything muttered by our pediatrician. This includes that Charlotte can not go into public places for the first month until flu season ends.  What this really means is that I can not go out in public, no Target, no restaurants, not even a quick trip to the grocery.  Taking this into consideration the pillage had to have some boundaries.  We were in the market for a wonderful place that offered delicious hotdogs and creamy soft serve ice cream.  Where else can meet all of my pig-out needs like Mechanicsville Turnpike with its Sonic and Dairy Queen.

Our raid started at Sonic where we enjoyed a succulent lunch of chili dogs with that weird cheese you find out of a can, it was simply amazing. 

We could not just stop there so we also added a side of onion rings (that tasted strangely like french toast sticks) and mozzarella sticks.  

The goodness and rule breaking could not stop there, coming home we passed a Dairy Queen and we stopped to delight in blizzards, made with soft serve ice cream, of course! 

The whole trip was amazing, delectable, and oh so gratifying.  Good thing I at least get those extra 500 calories...I wonder how many days of calories I consumed today?  It does not matter it was so well worth it!