Chloe Blue just turned 1

The day before Chloe's 1st birthday Brad wrote me this text message: " I remember a year ago going to the Artist's palate for lunch and watching Wild Hogs, but I don't remember much else without our little Chloe Blue". It is so true. Hard to imagine our life without her smile. As we look back on this first year, it's amazing how she's changed and how we've changed. She truly is our joy. I heart Chloe!
The proud dad made this collage for Chloe's birthday. Starting in the upper right corner, there is one picture for each month of her life.

Chloe's star cake.

Let's just say, she loved her cake.


Thanks to our wonderful families for making Chloe's day special. Here's to the next years full of wonder and always "looking up"

Spring Break part 1

First of all, it was wonderful to have Brad home for the entire week of spring break. He road over 60 miles on his bike (luckily he chose the only nice days to ride), Chloe waited for her dad to start his break to really walk and cruise around, we went to Des Moines, went for walks as a little family, and had 2 sets of visitors come see us.
These next few pictures should be reversed to go in chronological order. We had a great spring with 2 sets of visitors. What did we do to get so lucky? When I drove Jeff and Holli to the airport, I basically drove 20 minutes to Kansas City and met up with my sister Emily and her family. It couldn't have worked out better. With Em's family, we toured the church sites together, they went to Nauvoo and then they came back to Kirksville and we had a wonderful Easter Sunday. Oh yeah, and in between there, Chloe and Emily celebrated their birthday's.

My cute sister, Emily. I am blessed with 2 wonderful sisters who are very talented and giving and wonderful mom's to their kids. I learn a lot from them and how grateful I am they both can come visit.

Easter Sunday.

The Easter dress tradition begins.

Happy Easter. We found out that Easter hadn't been this early in March since 1916.

Spring Break part 2

We had so much fun with Jeff and Holli Chambers. They spent from Friday-Wednesday with us. We toured church sites, played games, watched the entire 3 season of The Office, and went out to eat. And of course, Chloe loved all the attention.

I loved being back at the Liberty Jail. I have so many pictures of me in this spot as a missionary and as I stood there, now, as a mom, it was just awesome. Can't believe its been over 5 years!

I remember...

The other day, Brad and I drove up to Des Moines, Iowa. We visited my cute friend Sunny and her little family. We have been friends since we were 10. We had a club in my backyard called Splat. We don't remember why we named it that. We had secret ways to write out names. We went to jr. High and High school together, we both went on a mission, and now we both have babies. Sometimes you think about the past and when I saw these pictures I thought of some funny things. Read below and remember...

Sweats. They have made a come back, with tight ankles and all. Look at my full forehead of bangs. I can say I never did the claw bangs loaded with hairspray. Millhollow. I used to make up dances and charge the neighbors to come watch. My sweet neighbors...they actually came. I used to sell pictures door to door. My sweet neighbors...they bought them. Once I was selling pictures and this lady asked us if we needed a drink (probably water) and my friend Kristine said, "could we have some hot cocoa". I was probably 9. we'd sell koolaid at the top of our street. We made enough money to go to Erickson's pharmacy and buy lots of candy and divide it up and eat it all before we got home.

Hats. This was sixth grade graduation. Everyone had teva sandles. Girbeau jeans. The big chiffon bow tied up ponytails. I am in the turquise shirt. I used to have a shirt that matched my shoes, or hat in this case. I would alternate sock colors to match my shirt. I'd wear two shirts so that I could roll the sleeves and let the shirt underneath show on the sleeves. The sixth graders went through a tetherball phase. I remember being really good.

Another classic hat. I only had braces for about a year. I always had colorful elastics put on my teeth. Why would I want to draw more attention to my mouth! I remember lots of kids throwing their retainers away in the garbage can at lunch time. I remember serving lunch. Why was that a coveted thing to do?? The walls were all carpeted in my elementary. My 6th grade teacher wore a black dicky under a see throughish white sweater.

Saved by the Bell, Punky Brewster, hightop shoes, jelly shoes, flip flops used to be called thongs. And yes, the photobooth at Woolworths. Me and my cute friend Sunny.

Waffle Cookie recipe.

Some of you asked, so here it is:

WAFFLE COOKIES

1 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

pinch b.s.

4 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cups cocoa

1 tsp. salt

mix all together. Cook on hot waffle iron.

I frost them with chocolate frosting. Here's a recipe below if you don't have one.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1/3 stick butter (soft)

1/2 bag powdered sugar

1/3 cups to 1/2 cup cocoa (to your taste)

mix together with electric mixer.

add 1 tsp vanilla

add 1 tbsp of milk at a time till you reach a smooth consistancy.

Happy Spring Break Eve

February meant quite a few different things for our little family. We celebrated a birthday, mom came and visited, I lost my voice and had the most awful cold for 2+weeks, the weather was cold cold, then we had a random Sunday which was 70, then cold cold. Brad had a test almost everysingle day of his life in February. He studied, tested, had lab, studied, had more tests, had class, disected, lab, tests, (if your getting all jumbled this is how I felt and I can't even imagine how he felt!) I often went to bed alone and woke up alone, thankfully Brad stayed healthy, and now...it'll be over tomorrow. And wow am I proud of my super human Brad. He did well and this is the only time he even took a nap. He just quietly did what he had to. Good job, Brad.
For my birthday I received a waffle iron. Brad had to get me a new one because I (whisper) cooked bacon in the other one. Not a good idea. I wanted to see if it would cook faster. Um...it did cook fast and it was really exciting to lift the lid and see the waffle squares in the bacon. The real problem came when I tried to clean it up!! So needless to say I am enjoying my new waffle iron.

I like waffles, but more importantly you have to have a waffle iron to create these decadent goodies. While making these cookies, I probably consume about 10. They're just sooo good warm and they cook much faster than regular cookies so you are constantly faced with the decision of "should I eat this warm one or should I not eat this warm one?"

I was in the hall and couldn't find Chloe. Really, I hope this means she will always look at the world in an, errrr...unique way!

Back and forth about 5 times. I guess she thought "I'm small---small space---small chloe get in small space"