The Chemistry of Clutch

OUR NEW BLOGS!!!

2010-09-04T23:49:00.003-05:00

Welp, this is it. I have finally changed from blogger to wordpress and here to announce to change of blog addresses. I split up the blog into two, one for updates on us, and one for updates on my crafting etc. Here are the new address:

www.mattandshannonmeredith.wordpress.com

and

www.shannonsknits.wordpress.com

Please visit our new site and add it to your RSS feeds or list of sites you visit. Sorry for the inconvienence but I think it will be better for me and the frequency that I update since it is easier for me to use. See you on the flipside :)

Well, here we are!!!!!!!

2010-08-30T15:10:00.003-05:00

We wanted to update everyone and let you know that we made it safe and sound and without too much drama. Just a little in the beginning of the trip :) but what kind of a road trip would it be without something. The picture above was taken early today by Shay. We tried to find Jack for the family pic but he was in a hidey-hole and was no where to be found until later.

Earlier this week we had a great crew of muscular men, women and babies to help load the truck on Thursday which really helped us out a lot and Friday was much less stressful in that aspect. Friday evening, some of our buddies came over for a last supper feast consisting of left overs that we were trying to eat before we left and a few more moments of fellowship together before we moved! Then some more family came in to help finish loading things and cleaning. I hated saying bye to my best bud Katie but I know she will visit soon so it helped but it was still sad.

We woke up SUPER early in the morning to finish everything up before the vet came to give Jack (our cat/panther) a sedation. That was quite the event and one I hope I dont have to do again. We had to not give him food and water after 6ish and so he was starving and confused about what was going on and really fought the vet to get the injection. She had to stick him 4 times before she was able to administer it she got it finally and then we hurried on our way. It was creepy too because I thought it would be more like an anesthetic and he would be sleeping but instead it was more like Michelle Pfeiffer in "What Lies Beneath" when Harrison Ford sedated her with a chemical and she was fully aware that he was trying to kill her and of what was happening but couldnt move her body!!!! AND his eyes were open the whole time!!! I told Matt that it was his turn next time!

Unfortunately, I was in the animal car by myself the whole time to Tulsa because Shay was in her car and was kind of freaking out the whole time that the cat was dead and that his eyes were drying out and that he was going to wake up in an hour. It was a bit of mass hysteria but then I got myself together when I stopped in Tulsa and the rest of the trip was better. I got to see my mom one more time before the move, acquired Shay to assist in the animal car for the rest of the way and continued my mission to hurry up to St. Louis before the cat could move around! We stayed ahead of the rest of the pack and made it there at 3:30 which was amazing (8 hours total even with our stops so really like 7 hours driving time). I made shay "blink the cat" like every 5-10 minutes because we were afraid his eyes were going to dry out and make sure he was still breathing along the way. Amazingly enough, he made it the whole way before he really started being able to stir which in hindsight was more enjoyable for him but very traumatic initially. He came around later that evening and is already back to his normal self but a little more loving than his norm.

We unloaded the whole truck by 8:00 pm on Saturday just in time for dinner and in time to go to bed early. My grandpa and cousins left in the morning and Shay and Janoah got to stay until today. We dined on some local pizza at Imos for lunch and cooked some turkey meatballs for dinner and Shay and I made some trips to Trader Joes before she had to go.

This last week has been an emotional one for Matt. He has been trying to be tough on the outside but crying himself to sleep at night because he is missing everyone at OKC. I have been the strong one and consoling him but sometimes he is an unstopable crying machine......NOT!!!!

But seriously, last week was tough for me especially and sad but we are really looking forward to this new stage in life. Our moving experience was about as good as it could be. Not too much furniture damage, no wrecks, no tickets, no close calls, no moving injuries or anything. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family to help and we cant thank you enough. We will miss you all like crazy so you better come visit us when you can. We have lots of room and want you all to visit when you are able and we will be back often as well. Matt starts his new job on Wednesday so please keep him in your prayers. We love you all, thanks for everything and keep in touch!!

p.s. this is the last official post on this blogging website and hopefully we will get internet in the next week or so and I will post a link here to our new blog address.

more knits

2010-07-27T19:30:00.000-05:00

I have a huge update coming soon (not announcing a pregnancy or anything - let me put that disclaimer out there) but it will be a long post or posts so I havent been motivated to write yet. Until then, here are some pics of the recent knitted things I have been working on. We go on our family reunion week this weekend so I plan on knitting a lot there too since I am not a good book reader. We will see...

A baby hat for Katie's friend

A baby blanket for Shay's friend and a pic of my new tags in action. I didnt mean for it to look so pink camoflauge but thats how it turned out. It is hard to see the pattern in these pics but it is checkered with a seed stitch border.

And a baby elf hat for Baby Harper. I hope it turns out well in the photo shoot Bopha!!

**I had issues last night with the pictures but at least it worked today :)

DAD Life

2010-07-08T22:46:00.003-05:00

Here's a pretty funny video made by some folks at Church on the Move in Tulsa for Father's day:

Ohhhhh snap, I got my hair did!

2010-06-19T10:54:00.005-05:00

I have been saying for a while that I was ready to cut my hair since it was long enough to donate again and I finally did! Sticking to my sneaky ways lately, I made a secret appointment for Thursday and didnt tell anyone not even Matt or anyone at work for the whole week. But I ended up telling Shay on Wednesday night when she called because I just had to tell someone but she lives in Tulsa so I knew no one else would find out.

Thursday was a really rough day at work for me so I was so glad when it was time for my appointment because I was needing a break big time. But I was running a few minutes late and then got stuck behind a train so I thought I might not get to get it cut afterall. The cottonwood secretary lady was being really uptight about me being late so I drove incredibly unsafe and made it just barely late with no wrecks or tickets.

I have never been there but it was awesome! You get a head and temple massage as well as an arm and hand massage when your hair is being washed. Plus some other complementary services that I didnt take advantage of because I was in a hurry. And since I was donating my hair, they didnt charge me for my haircut and mailed it for me also! What a deal!!

These are the only pics I snapped that day. I was so flustered from my day at work and running late I almost forgot to take any. She cut off about 11 inches here and then about 12 total after it was all said and done.

Voila!

The above picture was taken much later in the evening when I got home and the bottom picture was right when I got back to work from my haircut.

Since no one knew, my work friends were totally shocked when I came back. Matt was shocked too because he also didnt know. I love surprises!! It has been about 3 or so years since my last major cut to donate and so I was ready for it again especially since it is getting so hot now. I love the cut and plan to keep it short for a while then start growing it again for the next Locks of Love donation!! Bring on the summer!!!

Vancouver trip re-visited (like 6 weeks later)

2010-06-12T09:30:00.001-05:00

Well, as I do often, I have neglected my blogging and I havent even blogged about the best trip of the year so far!! I havent really forgotten I was just putting it off because I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hate putting pictures on blogspot especially when there are tons to choose from. For as many people that use this website, you would think it would be more user friendly especially in the picture/movie uploading features but it definately IS NOT! I have been contemplating switching websites but dont really know of other ones that are better. Any suggestions??

But anyway, back to Vancouver...

We had an absolutely fabulous time there. Everything was beautiful and there was so much more to do that we had time for. For those who didnt know, we got to plan such a wonderful trip because Matt had a chemisty meeting conveniently located there. It takes place twice/year in various locations around the world and in April in was in Vancouver. And because he is such a brilliant fellow, we got it all payed for (except my plane ticket because i have nothing to do with OU) but we did have credit card milage that allowed me to get my ticket for almost nothing! That is part of what made the trip even more awesome!

We got to go for one whole week and few days we got to do stuff together and a few days Matt was at the meeting and I did stuff by myself. Aside from getting plantar fasciatis, I can think of no bad things to report about the trip. The town was beautiful! It is the 5th greenest city in the world and you can definately tell. The have recycling bins in the hotel room! If you stay downtown, you can do big city stuff, yet you are within walking distance of hiking, parks, beaches and a bus ride away from the mountains and kayaking. It was just wonderful.

But as previously mentioned, I hate puting lots of pics on here so I think I am just going to direct you to my facebook page and put them all up on there with comments about where we were and stuff. I took so many it is really hard to cull down for blogger. So go here and look at my pictures to see all about our wonderful Vancouver expedition. If you ever get a chance to go, I highly reccomend it!!

Baby boy beanie

2010-05-26T08:00:00.001-05:00

This is a cute little baby boy hat I made for my friend this week. I really like the design and will probably make some elf new born hats as well for baby photos. This hat is for a 6 month old baby.

I always struggle to come up with cute ideas for baby boy stuff, but I thought this was cute and still masculine enough :)

Weekend funtivities!

2010-05-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

This is the first weekend we have been home in a while without crazy activities and we had lots of fun! Charlie was here with us while her parents were rockin out with Josh Ritter in NYC. Friday, we came home and did a bit of yard work before we grilled out dinner. Matt cleaned out the dog pools which makes the front half of our yard a mud pit and the dogs got really nasty but had lots of fun doing it!

I dont know what Matt is doing here but Charlie is getting ready for it :)

And then Lucy is getting down and dirty with her frisbee. Needless-to-say, they got a good washing before they came in that night.

Sick Lucy, sick!

And here is what we had on Friday night, dry rub pork chops, sweet potato fries and broccoli. We really love sweet potatoes...I have been cooking them so much lately and they are always so good and good for you. Much better than regular potatoes.

And right after dinner, we decided to go to Orange Leaf (not to be confused with Orange Tree) to get some delicious yogurt. Can you guess which one is Matthews bowl?

And headed to the lake to eat it. There was some amateur band playing at Louie's but we didnt stay for that really. They werent very good but it was fun to walk at the lake at sunset. We dont do that nearly enough. I kind of forget about going to the lake except when I am driving by to and from work.

A good picture after several tries, we are getting better at these :)

And of course a silly one, I am not good at silly faces but Matt is :)

Saturday, we took Lucy to get her annual shots and ran a few errands in Norman and then hung out at home the rest of the day. And since we were in the grilling mood, grilled out again on Saturday. This time it was steaks, sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts on the grill.

It has been a fun relaxing weekend and I am glad we had good weather to enjoy the outside.

Our Dog is a Vegan

2010-05-23T13:00:00.001-05:00

My mom would approve of this message since she is a bigtime vegan. But yeah, if you didnt know, my dog Lucy LOVES grass! She eats it all the time and will eat it like its a treat. If Matt is about to mow the yard, she eats around the edges of the fence seemingly as if to beat him before he cuts it all off. She will eat it while laying in the grass and also loves for us to feed it to her. It is weird but funny! I tried to take some pictures but she moves too fast in them so I didnt get many but I did get a video.

I dont know if grass is good for dogs to eat so much of but it is better than table food probably, she sure does love it and its free!

Oh yeah, I'm that guy....

2010-05-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of those people that has a Topsy Turvy! I bought one at the end of the year last year to try this season and ended up buying another to try and grow tomatoes and yellow peppers. And guess what, it appears to actually be working!! And here is the proof:

It is the first tomato on the vine! And I looked a little harder and there are several more tiny ones too! YEAH, I didnt actually think it would grow tomatoes but so far it is going well. Apparently, they grow where the flowers are after they die, I also didnt know that before either.

The one below is the pepper plant. Only flowers so far but then hopefully peppers. It was slower growing than the tomatoes and just started blooming flowers this week.

Too bad I didnt do a whole garden again this year, maybe next year. I am sure I will keep you updated on how these plants are doing as the veggies mature.

My Slaw is a Master!

2010-05-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

In case you dont know what that title means, it is the nickname Deanna gave me recently. I forgot where she heard it but its pretty funny! (Slaw = sister-in-law)

Well as mentioned in the previous post, not only did Matthew just graduate with an advanced degree, Deanna did as well! Two weeks ago, Deanna graduated from Abilene with her Masters Degree in Missions. She along with a few other families have been training for over 2 years for a church planting mission in Concepcion, Chili. They are currently being funded by a church in College Station for this last year leading up to their departure in January of 2011 and they are all in the process of trying to get funding for their time in Chile. I was trying to post the link for you to read about their team but I guess they removed the promotional thing from the church website. Wah, wah :( But anyway, we are all so proud of her and the team and all their plans to do great work for God there. I know they are getting excited and nervous and I would just like to solicit the prayers of my friends for their team as they make their final preparations for this mission. So here are a few pics from her big weekend!!!!

Deanna getting hooded (and she found out later all the hood were upside down, oops!)

Post ceremony pictures:

John and Monica (the proud parents)

Aunts and uncle

Trina and Deanna visiting at the awesome burger joint we went to after the ceremony.

And for dinner, we went to this cute restaurant in the country. This band was the entertainment for the evening. They played lots of classic country tunes and it was cool that their bass player was a woman! Never seen that before.

John and Monica being silly and hiding their chins :)

They had all the saying on the trim of the ceiling and this one was the most unique and I had never heard it before.

The whole clan at the end of the evening (minus Monica, I guess she took the picture),

And our ever necessary bed picture. We probably could have squeezed John on there dont you think?

On Sunday, we cooked brunch for the family for a mini-Mother's Day Celebration. We made bacon and carrot cake pancakes. They were sooooo good!

And one last group picture...let us not forget our doggies :)

Congratulations again Deanna! I am so proud and honored to be your s-law and will be sad when you move but look forward to coming and visiting you! I am glad we got to see you two weekends in a row and I cant wait for WALTONIA!

Graduations all around!

2010-05-17T21:38:00.016-05:00

Well as most of you know, we have been quite the busy traveling bees lately! Rather than go in chronological order and start with vancouver posts, I am going to mix it up a bit and start with this last weekends celebration since it is fresh on my mind and not as many pictures to choose from (the real reason)!

OU's 118th commencement ceremony was on Friday and Matt got to participate, even though he isnt quite finished yet. He still has his thesis to defend in a month or two but it was a great celebration weekend none-the-less. I have been so excited about this weekend that I could hardly sleep on Thursday and Friday. Way back in January, I asked off for those days so that I could get things together for the celebration and be able to accompany him to all the festivities in Norman on Friday. The first of which was at The National Weather Center for just the graduate college. They had some awesome food for us and Dean Williams gave a mini speech in front of the weather globe projecting the weather for the past couple of weeks.

Deanna is standing by the tornado measuring machines from Twister

The reception ended earlier than expected so some people walked around campus and we ran some errands. Matt is standing in front of one of many statues dressed in robes.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the ceremony was moved to Lloyd Noble instead of the football stadium. Here we are freezing in line while the adults waited in the car for a little while longer :)

This Scottish bagpipe band played the processional music. I LOVE bagpipes!!

These indian head dresses were awesome! (and dave if you read this, i immediately thought of your facebook pic when i saw them and laughed at an inappropriate time)

Matt and Dr. Glathofer walking up to the hooding.

Matt and his new BFF David Boren! The doctorate candidates were the only ones who got to be hooded and walk on stage (besides the super smart undergrads).

Deanna is making good use of the glow sticks here at the end!

Dr. Glatzhofer reinacted the hooding since I couldnt see it live and the dude mispronounced Matt's name (however that is possible). And we could barely hear him at that.

This is one of my favs!

We got to go down to the floor for a bit afterward and take a few more pics.

The whole group that was able to go to the ceremony. They didnt give us enough rain tickets so my mom and grandpa couldnt come :(

And then when we got home late, we started working on the rest of the cake preparations. Here is Matt attempting to make his Ferrocene molecule that wasnt to be. But good try Matty! I didnt post a pic but Shay and I had quite the time trying to roll out the fondant. Apparently the trick is to use shortening of somesort not powdered sugar which one website suggested. We finally got it on the second try but as you will see later, it wasnt thin enough.

The girls decorating flowers, dejavu eh?

We borrowed all this cool glassware from Matt's lab for the table decor except the test tube racks, I bought those on Ebay.

I made these nerdy element placemats too. I think I just made like 10 different ones and lots of copies.

Dinner was catered by Mama Roja's and it was delicious! They need to package their food better because we had an incident with the beans but not a major problem by any means, just a big mess!

Liesel and I got to hang out momentarily for the first time. I havent ever seen her and her parents since before she was born! I am a bad friend :(

Friends and family

(p.s. Mom you are starting to semi-smile like grandma again :))

And here is the cake. It was a collaborative effort by all. Katie Rowten made the figurines, Deanna and I made the sheet cakes, Shay and I rolled the fondant, and I wrote the table elements and "strategically" placed the figurines to cover up my mistakes. It was a successfuly first attempt at using fondant in my opinon. And as I told many of my friends, I was pleased with the outcome enough to not throw it in the trash and go to Cheesecake Factory. I was annoyed by the sagging sides though. I guess our fondant wasnt thin enough and made it to heavy. I dont know. None-the-less, Matt loved it and that makes me happy!

Here you can see Matt's Houston team logos, his rubberband ball, signature yellow hat and sick duct tape sandals which he wore most of college and we still own.

His trombone, some frisbees (for frisbee golf of course), and some molecules.

A top view. I origianally wanted to shape the whole periodic table but it would have wasted too much cake. It worked out well anyway, so we could put all the stuff on it.

Ta-Da!

The table decor

Matt ate the head off of himself before we served cake.

"Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor"

Grant and Cary played most of the evening and Matt sat in for a couple of songs. He hasnt played in like 6 months, which is more than I can say for myself.

The boys popped the balloons at the end of the night. It sounded like we were being attacked with all the echoing.

Shay is excited, cant you tell.

I forgot I bought silly string for everyone to get Matt with but Shay, Deanna and Rob took care of that just before we left.

Well it was a whirlwind of a weekend but it was so much fun! I love hanging out with our family and friends and I am sooooo proud of Matthew!! He has worked so hard and is almost finished, just the thesis left to defend sometime in June or July and he will officially be Dr. Matt! Congratulations again my sweet husband and thanks for working so hard always (even though it isnt official :)!!! I love you!

Next post: Deanna's graduation, which was actually the week before Matt's.

We Made It!!!

2010-04-24T20:48:00.004-05:00

Well after a long day of travelling and time zone changes and loooooooong customs lines, we finally made it to our hotel here in Vancouver at about 4:30 pm (our time 6:30 your time). The flights themselves were not too bad and were all on time just all the other stuff in between took a while. We went to bed last night about midnight ish and got up about 5:oo am. I took this picture of our pretty irises that bloomed last night. It looks like they are most going to bloom while we are gone and start wilting when we get back :(

Brennon got us to the airport at about 6:45 am which was as it turned out SUPER DUPER early but at least we had plenty of time and didnt have to rush like some people did. That left me with plenty of time to work on my newest knitting project!!

The first flight was pretty choppy for Matt (who was in the back of the plane). He almost got super sick but made it to Denver and immediately took some dramamine and pepto. Then he did well the rest of the trip. We rolled into Vancouver at about 1:30 our time but waited in a ridiculously long customs line. It took about an hour and a half to get through!! Finally we did, hopped on the skytrain to our hotel area, checked in, unpacked and headed to the tourest information center right here where we are standing in these pics. As you can see in the picture of Matt, we have a lot of planning to do tonight!

We then went to a local grill/pub, stuffed our faces and are now relaxing at our cute little hotel. I hope you all have a great week, I know we will :)

*If I have time, I might make another blog update but I am not making any promises...you know how bad I can be at time!

Happy Birthday Lucy Goosy

2010-04-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

Well as you probably knew, we treat our dog like a human child. She is most certainly our little fur kid princess!! And our puppy dog turned 4 (or 28 depeding on how you look at it) last week, April 6th. She is as old as me and Matt!! So as per usual, we gave her a little celebration. I forgot to buy doggie ice cream but I made her a birthday-dinner-of-champions! It consisted of rotisserie chicken pieces, white rice, and a dollop of peanut butter. Lucy is not-so-patiently waiting for it here in this picture.

She's licking her chops in anticipation!

Mmmmmmmmmm, dont you wish you got that for your birthday!

I forgot to mix in the peanut butter and she licked that up in one swoop and got it all stuck in her mouth! It was funny!

And as if I dont buy her enough toys anyway, I got her another toy at the store when I was there to just pick up one thing :) It is kind of a creepy toy though because it is a platypus looking thing with removable squeeky eggs from the stuffed animals stomach. But as long as it squeeks, Lucy is entertained.

Happy Biirthday little Lucy, I know you will be reading this :)

Chicken Pesto Pizza

2010-04-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

Matt and I really like this pizza I make often and for lack of better creative names, I call it Chicken Pesto Pizza. I am, in general, not a huge pizza fan but my favorite pizza is the ones I make and Hideaway Pizza (and Mazzio's on occasion). Here is the recipe if you would like to try it yourself:

Ingredients:

Pizza crusts (personal or regular sized)

Pesto Sauce (my favorite is the Classico brand)

Olive Oil

Cooked Chicken ( I usually use shredded rotisserie chicken bc I dont like to cook it)

Feta Cheese

Italian Cheese Blend

Spinach

Sun Dried Tomatoes

1. Heat oven to 350 Degrees

2. Foil and grease a cookie sheet

3. Lay crust on foil and brush olive oil on the edge of the crust and put a layer of pesto sauce in the middle of the crust. I like to make the smaller pizzas because you dont waste as much if you dont end up eating it all for leftovers and it is always better the first go around than reheated many times.

4. Then put a small layer of italian cheese blend next.

5. Next cut the spinach and add it to your pizza along with the chicken and sun dried tomatoes

6. Finally add your feta cheese and then another small layer of italian cheese to top it all off

7. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or longer if you want the crust to be more cruchy.

Yuuuuuuuuuum Yummy!

Birthday Month

2010-04-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

Well now that my birthday month is over, I guess it is time for an update. I had an absolutely wonderful birthday month - and I celebrated with friends and family just about that long too! I think the festivities officially began the day before my bday with my bday lunch with work friends, then pre-birthday dinner with my grandparents at Iron Starr. They came to take us out to eat that evening. Then the next morning, my work friends brought a whole bunch of delicious breakfast food because I was only working a half day because my sweet hubby planned a weekend away for us at a bed and breakfast in Arkansas. I had been looking forward to that for months! We stayed at the Beland Manor which was located just across the Oklahoma border in Ft. Smith. My favorite part of the weekend was the massage that we got Saturday morning right after breakfast. We dont get those nearly enough!! We continued our eating festivities and had dinner at a great little Spanish/Cuban restaurant one night and ate at a German restaurant the other night. Both of which were delicious. We didnt do a lot of shopping but I did get to go to the yarn store there in town and we also played frisbee golf at their park which is always fun! We also watched some movies, relaxed in our room and I was often sitting in the rocker by our fireplace in the room! So that was my first celebration weekend!

Then, the weekend after that, the Meredith clan came to visit us! They made it just in time before we got all the snow that weekend. Luckily we only lost power in the middle of the night or that really would have cramped our style on Saturday! We did a lot of hanging around the house which is always nice. We cooked some delicious food, watched tons of movies and played with some of my new bday gifts too. I got a super awesome Italian Cook Book from Deanna, a few clothing items and a new Wii game called Just Dance from John and Monica and then a surprise present that is not here just yet from everyone which is: a new laptop!!!!!!!!!! (But since this post was originally written, my laptop came in and this is the official new post from my new lappy)! Matt got a super good deal since he is a student at OU and surprised me with it since I always steal his :) We had tons of fun with the new Wii game (which included forcing the boys to play) and just enjoyed being with family and not having too many plans to attend to. And we again managed to eat out a time or two that weekend too!

And then, the weekend after that (last weekend), we got to go to Tulsa and spend time with my family! Shay just moved to a new apt and we went and helped her get all set up in there. And everyone knows how much I LOVE organizing and moving things!!!!!!!!!!! We did tons of shopping but Shay certainly won the spending contest by a factor of 10 or more :) Matt and Janoah got to play frisbee golf, Lucy got to play at the little dog park near by alot, we met up with my grandparents, had delicious desserts from Whole Foods, and got to meet up with some dear friends that we haven't seen in almost 3 years! Way too long! Shay got me a whole bunch of knitting books with tons of cute ideas in them and mom got me a kit to make knitted boots and all of the ZOE group cds that I didnt have and have wanted for a long while!

I am so incredibly blessed to have friends and family that love and care for me so much! They do way more for me than I deserve and I love them very much! I am sure I dont say that enough too!!! Thank you everyone for all the special things you gave me for my bday and for spending time with me and for loving me so much. I love you all and very much!!!!

**sorry for the lack of pictures, I didnt take very many with my camera but I got a few from the John and Monica

more knitting stuff

2010-04-07T22:05:00.003-05:00

I promise I will write another post not about knitting sometime but I havent got the pics still and I wanted at least a few before posting my bday update. So until then, here are some more pics of my knitted stuff from last week. The first hat is the first billed hat that I have made and I am pretty happy with it. I think that the next hat I make I wante the bill to be a little more angled but in general I am happy with this one. It was supposed to be for a one year old but I think it will be more like a toddler sized hat. The second hat is an elf hat for newborn pics. I dont like it as well because I think even strips would look better but I am still pleased with it in general. They always look a little funny laying flat but they are super cute on the tiny babies!

new knits

2010-03-24T21:15:00.007-05:00

Okay, I have a couple of catch up posts that I need to write but I dont have pics yet so they will have to wait. Until then, here are some of the most recent things I have been knitting. I made this little hat on my bday weekend and the booties last weekend. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the lighting changes a lot when I take pics because of the flash and ambient light so sorry about that. It makes it hard to tell the colors of everything in some of the pics I think.

And I am trying to get some more stork baskets, pods, hammocks and cocoons together to use for pics when baby Ava is born and some of my other friends babies that are to be born soon as well! The one below is very girly but I am going to make some more neutral ones and boy-ish ones too.

And here is a hat that I made last night for my friends one year old girl but I have a few flower options that I cant decide on. I think I will just make 3 hats so that I can use all of the flowers!!

I kind of think the pink flower is too big for the size of the hat but some people like big flowers on things!

Thats all for now!

random picture day!

2010-03-18T22:03:00.003-05:00

I have been meaning to post these pics for a long time because I took them forever ago but have forgotten. This is Jackie with a lot of his friends! It looks like he is giving them the stink eye for being on his back!

And this is Lucy with lots of her toy friends. It is kind of a bad picture but you get the idea!

I love my pets! They make our lives interesting!

Spring Cocoons

2010-03-07T21:24:00.009-06:00

These are the newest things I knitted this last week. They are photo props for baby photos. I have lots of friends about to have babies so I wanted to make some stuff to have available if they want to use and also to get some pictures for future advertising. I love these colors for the spring time!

Here is a picture of all 3 of them:

A baby boy cocoon (or it could be for a girl too I suppose). It is folded down like a shirt but I think it is long enough that it would fit over the baby's head and still be folded under the arms.

This is the pea pod that could be for a boy or girl. You lay the baby inside it like it is an open pea pod. I forgot to take a picture this way but it could be cuffed as well.

And this is the baby girl cocoon (definately not for a baby boy)! Something is wrong with the picture formatting because it put them in here sideways. Sorry about that. Just pretend I was trying to be artistic!

Baby boy booties/hat

2010-03-03T21:50:00.005-06:00

Here is the newest set from last week. Matt gave me the idea for the blue pom pom on the hat.

I really enjoy making these baby sets, and they dont take me too long to make. These will definitely be on the website/etsy site. So far I have only made newborn sets but will also make 6 months and 1 year sizes too. To all my friends having babies soon, I hope you are a fan of knitted stuff because it is likely I will make you a set for your baby-to-be :)

babysitting fun!

2010-03-01T09:00:00.002-06:00

Last week, Matt and I got to hang out with Olivia while Katie and Ryan went out for Ryan's bday. We had loads of fun and Olivia really enjoyed interacting with Lucy as always. She only got mad at me when I tried to make her go to sleep, she won that battle the first time! After I conceded, we then we came back out into the living room and played with Lucy and Jack for another hour and she was perfectly content. I guess she is just a partaay girl! At least she slept good the whole night I hear so that her parents could enjoy some much needed sleep I am sure :)

Matt tried to get her smiling but it didnt work out. You cant really tell in this pic, but Olivia has a big wad of my hair in her mouth!! At least none stayed in there though!

Baby booties and baby hats

2010-02-27T09:00:00.001-06:00

So a few weeks ago, I started trying to figure out how to make little baby booties and I finally found a pattern. I practiced it for a while and alternated the pattern to come up with something that I like a lot. Here are a few examples of the finished products, these were for baby Ava (Ryan and Heather's baby that is on the way):

And I made this little hat (a miniature version of an adult hat that I made on Christmas break).

I really like these little tiny hats and booties and this week I am going to make a set for a baby boy this week. Those are always harder to come up with a cute idea thats not to girly. Hopefully I have a good idea come to me, we'll see.

Valentine's cupcakes

2010-02-25T09:00:00.000-06:00

We had the annual "Mayfair Live" talent show and dessert bar again at church this year and I made some delicious goodies. I got this idea from my cupcake book to make a "box of chocolates" instead of making mini cupcakes in a regular chocolate box, I made regular size cupcakes in a giant chocolate box that I made from posterboard. They were red velvet cupcakes with chocolate frosting instead of traditional cream cheese frosting. I just got as much pink, red, white, and chocolate candies out that I had, bought some more too and went to town. I was so pleased with how these turned out as you might be able to tell by all the detailed pics below:

I also made some regular things too, these tortes are filled with nutella, carmel, chocolate and topped with pecans.
And I made the cake on the left. It is an Italian Creme cake. Joanne made this delicious cake on the right. It is chocolate cake covered in peanut butter icing and topped with reeses cups and pieces (yuuummmmmmmmy)!!!

Lana made this pretty strawberry cake below, I wish I had got a piece because I love strawberry but I got full before I could try any.

And I dont know who made these last two but they looked really impressive and delicious.

There were many more and too many to try all but it was great as usual and I am glad all my things turned out well despite the minor complications I had when making them.

Decadent Valentines Events

2010-02-23T21:16:00.005-06:00

This year, Matt and I really lived it up around Valentines Day with all of our outings. The week before Valentines Day we went to Chocolate Decadence, an annual fund-raising event for historic Automobile Alley. This was our second year to go and I enjoyed it even more than last year! If you dont know how it works, here is a brief overview: There are 20-30 restaurants across the city that have a table with their chocolate goodies and everyone gets to eat as much of it as they want and vote on the best table at the end of the night. There are silent auctions and live auctions going on too but we never get into that :)

Since I am not quite the chocolate lover that Matt is, I tried harder to pace myself this year. We found The Mantle's booth which was serving lamb chops with a chocolate balsamic glaze (super delicious by the way) and La Luna's booth that served chicken mole as their "chocolate" dishes so I basically went back and forth between those booths and tried chocolate desserts of all kinds in between. I definately ate more than last year and felt like I needed to be rolled out to the car afterward.

I brought my camera but its always hard to take good pictures this way...we have never really mastered it. This old photographer man was making fun of me and took a real picture of us, we will see if it ends up in one of those OKC magazines.

At the beginning, there is usually a jazz trio and they were really good, then my least favorite part of the evening is when Jack and Ron make their appearance as the MC's. It would be so much better if they werent there but I guess a lot of people like them. I dont get it.

And lastly, they added a free photo booth to take silly pics, so we did. I dont think I have ever taken pictures in one of those things, they are really small. This is poor quality in more than one way :) but I had to take a picture of the picture since our scanner isnt cooperating!! But anyway, it was such a fun night and I am glad we went again. All you chocolate fans should look it up next year. It is usually the week before Valentines Day.

And on to our other Valentines celebration...

Matt and I celebrated the day before due to lots of stuff going on that week. I went to a knitting class all day and came back to some lovely roses and a sweet poem (classic Matthew style)!!

I always love his silly poems and cards that he makes. They always put me in a good mood and remind me of when we first started dating!!

And for dinner, we got to finally go to The Melting Pot and use our gift card. Luckily we made reservations weeks in advance because the time slots were slim pickings already. We got lobster tails, steak, chicken, ravioli, veggies and that was just the main course. There were 3 other courses including desert. We got the spinich artichoke dip for the app and the smores fondue for dessert. Delicious and incredibly filling. Again, I had to be rolled out of there.

After eating here, I realized that we could make stuff like this with our own fondue pot. I have never really thought about making the different fondues they make, we have only ever made plain chocolate fondue and not very often at that. So we definately have plans to use it in the near future.
And like a dummie, I brought my camera but it was missing the ever vital memory card so we couldnt take any pics. Fortunately, we had a super nice/sneaker server and she snuck the restaurant camera, took a picture of us and told her boss it was my bday so they would print it and put it in this frame. So here is my picture of the picture again.

I am so blessed to have my wonderful husband by my side forever and am reminded of how much he loves me even more this time of year when we get to do fun things like this. I love you Matty and happy Valentines Day!

"I love, I love, I love, I love my calendar girl"

2010-02-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yet another post that is overdue. In early December, I came home for lunch and got a surprise in the mail. I was so excited/confused to see the Tulsa Boxer Rescue Foundation 2010 calendar in the mail. After a little while, I remembered that Matt and I submitted a photo of Lucy and her mini-me friend from H-town about a year earlier and I thought they had sent us a calendar. As in turns out, Matt bought it but it is tooooooo precious. All these sweet little boxers in the calendar. They are super cute when they are little puppies!

Anyway, Lucy and Sudie made the calendar for September (Matt's bday month). It is kind of weird because they spelled Sudie's name wrong and then added a middle name of "zoom" which who knows where that came from and used our last name, but oh well. Here is proud Lucy with her calendar spread:

They look like Berenstein Bears bigtime in this picture! Unfortunately, earlier this year, Sudie had a tragic accident and died :( I am glad this picture got chosen because we were able to give one to her owners as some memorabila of Sudie. If you would like to learn more about the Tulsa Boxer Rescue or the Lone Star Boxer Rescue (in Houston area) you can click on the links. The tulsa link is where we got the calendar. I know we will submit again for next year!

Oliva the Wise

2010-02-17T10:00:00.002-06:00

When it snowed a bunch a few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of spending lots of time with some of our best buds, the Isenbergs. And while I have no pictures of us, I have lots of Olivia! Imagine that. These are the best ones:

I saw this cute buret pattern that looked cute and easy and decidided to try it out. When knitting sometimes, I just decide that I think I know what is best and kind of disregard suggestions by the pattern writer. Well this is what happens when you do that, you end up with a giganto hat instead of a baby buret. But is is super cute anyway, she just wont be able to wear it until like a year or so. But we had to take advantage of the photog moment.

She looks like a very wise mini-buddha, but obviously cuter!

She's like, "you know what i'm talkin bout Willis"
Another day they came over, Olivia was all into reaching for Lucy, and as you know, Lucy loved to lick the babies. This is her face after all the licking. Looks like she is trying to tell me to wash her hand please!

I tried to put these pics in order but blogspot is being stupid again. I say this alot, but I really feel it should be more user friendly than it is. It is always messing up and it is quite cumbersome to put pics and videos in. But anyway, you get the idea. Maybe it will be fixed sometime soon!

A much belated Houston post.

2010-02-15T20:36:00.003-06:00

After all, we went on New Years weekend. I have been behind as always so I will do an incredibly brief picture update:

We brought the Wii and had lots of fun with all the interactive games!

Christmas day number 4 for us. We had Christmas together, then with my mom and sis, then with Monica and John, and then all 5 of us when Deanna came back! These 3D glasses that Monica bought make all the Christmas lights into logos or words popping out from the tree. It was cool!

One day we went to Old Town Spring, which is kind of an old timey place in the area. Im not sure if it was an old town or just made to look old. But it was fun. We stopped at this one store to pet this HUGE great dane and she was getting playful with Matt so I sat by her to try and calme her down since she couldnt go anywhere and then she sat in my lap. Her owner came by and was like, "oh yeah she does that all the time." It was random and funny :)

We decided we would try something fried that shouldnt be and John and Matt decided on fried twinkies. My face here is about accurate for my feelings toward this. It was waaaaaaay to sweet and weird.

Different friends and family came to visit while we were there. These kiddos are Matt's second cousins who are getting big now and they just loved Lucy. And she loved them being there and paying so much attention to her. She was all mopey when they left.

And here I am doing what I always do, knitting, sitting in the warmest spot in the room, and cuddling with my dog when she allows :)

And we also went to the final Texans game of the year. We had super awesome seats and the game was really great! Everyone was pumped because they were on the verge of making the playoffs, if all the cards fell in place and they ended up killing the Pats but only after almost blowing it at one point. Too bad the Jets didnt loose. But at least we got to witness the first winning season in Texans history!

As you can see, we had an excellent trip and I wish we could go back because it has to be warmer than here right now!! Speaking of that, I am FREEZING right now. Better turn up the heat!

funny picture

2010-02-11T20:34:00.004-06:00

Well I am kind of behind on some things I wanted to post about but since I dont have time for those, I was going to put up these pics that we took last night. I posted one on facebook last night but wanted to write a blog with the picture that Matt took too.

So we pulled into Target last night to get some laundry soap to find this lovely piece of artwork in the spot next to where we parked:

Matt immediately started laughing and I was reminded of his nasty duct tape sandals from college and this sick duct tape couch that used to be at the church and various other duct tape items that shouldnt be duct taped. I was so mad that I didnt bring my real camera to take pics so we just had to use our cell phones.

Earlier this year I posted a link to peopleofwalmart.com which this totally reminded me of something that could be on that website. And I was thinking of posting this picture except that we were at Target, I dont know if it counts. About 5 minutes after we arrived, a "tricked out" car pulled up with a for-real giant spoiler. I wonder what they thought about this.

And then just before we were leaving, the driver and passenger showed up. They were just a guy and a girl that looked college aged. Random!

Some videos for you

2010-02-04T22:54:00.003-06:00

check this stuff out. two totally different, yet totally amazing videos:

Video 1: freakishly flexible ladies singing about potato salad:

Video 2: have you ever wondered how different it would be to boil water on earth vs. in space? Well since I'm sure you have, here is the video to show the difference:

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

2010-01-31T21:50:00.002-06:00

This recipe was from The Food Network Magazine. Matt and I made it last week and thought it was delicious so I wanted to share it with you all.

Ingredients:

1 pound tricolor pasta (or pasta of choice)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2-3 tsp dijon mustard
ground pepper and salt
2/3-3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup diced sun dried tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh basil chopped
1/4 cup diced onion
2 large pickled pepperoncini peppers diced
3 tbs halved black olives
2 tsps chopped fresh oregano
1 1/2 ounces crumbled feta cheese
1 1/2 tbs grated romano cheese

Directions:

1. Cook pasta, drain and rinse.

2. While pasta is cooking, make vinaigrette. Whisk together: vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper to taste, then gradually mix in enough of the oil to make a smooth dressing.

3. In separate bowl, combine, sun dried tomatoes, basil, onion, pepperoncini, olives and oregano.

4. Add the cooked pasta, vinaigrette, and both cheeses and toss.

**The only alterations I made was more cheese of course and I dont much care for onions or black olives so I didnt put those in there either. Also, I added chicken and served warm for a main dish. It was soooooo delish!

Booty Pop!

2010-01-21T21:54:00.005-06:00

Yes that is the real name of an actual product being sold these days. When Matt and I went to Houston the last time, we stayed at the hotel halfway and I saw this commerical on TV. At first, I thought it was an SNL skit but then realized that it was about 9:00 am and SNL wasn't on and that this was an actual advertisement. I cant believe this is for real!!! Good ole' "As Seen On TV" products. What will they think of next.

A Late Christmas For My Dear Friend

2010-01-17T22:54:00.007-06:00

Can you guess who she is?

You might find her here:
Here: Here: Here: Or even here: But NEVER here (that's crazy talk):Give up, well here is one more clue, this is her office:

Merry-very-late Christmas Katie!! You don't have to learn how to finish your green scarf now!! (Although if you find it and want to still, I will be glad to show you how :) )

Hats and Scarfs

2010-01-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

Number One:

I was practicing making a swirled pattern and learned how to make flowers. It kind of reminds me of Charlie Brown but I like this hat a lot and it is pretty easy to make.

Number 2:

With this one, I was practicing making elf hats and wanted to make a new Santa hat for the cocoon that I made earlier and featured on Katie's blog here. I thought it turned out alright but i think the tail part needs to be thicker for longer. It got to skinny in the end.

Number 3:

This is a hat and scarf combo that I made for my secret santa person at work. I came across a crocheted pattern for these ruffle scarfs in an email I get from Lion Brand every week and thought I would try it because it was only a variation of 2 stitches. I just love the pattern and it is super easy to make, but not with this kind of yarn though. It is a lot easier with regular yarn.

Number 4:
This is the same scarf pattern as number three but with a smaller size yarn so it is more the size of a decorative scarf. I got this yarn at a random yarn store in Houston on Thanksgiving break. It is a pale blue, black, and white yarn. It ended up really pretty as well.

Well that's it for now, I will get back to knitting soon but I am on a little hiatus for a bit so I can organize my craft room and clean house this next week. It is a mess from all the holiday comings and goings.

All you ever wanted to know about the Christmas Cactus

2010-01-10T08:00:00.001-06:00

So I already did a post previously about my little cactus but I am doing another one because I think it is so pretty and it bloomed a whole bunch more since the first post. I saw this at the store that we bought our Christmas tree at and had to buy it because my little one died that I had before. The reason it is called a Christmas cactus is because just before Christmas is when the flower bloom. There are other cactus' in the family that bloom at other times of the year for instance the Easter cactus.

Around early December, these tiny little buds start forming and before long, they turn into these beautiful big flowers. There are many color varieties but I got this one because it was the biggest and the brightest colored flower they had.

You can really tell the difference in the lighting in all the pictures! I have been looking at some websites to see what I need to do throughout the year to get it to bloom again next year and have been coming up with lots of different suggestions. Some people say they are finicky and some people say they are easy plants. Some people even say they can bloom year round in some temperatures and environments. We'll see how it goes. In case you are interested, here are a few websites about these plants and also for my reference later when I need to look up what to do:

http://www.wikihow.com/Care-for-a-Christmas-Cactus

http://www.humeseeds.com/xmasccts.htm

http://www.essortment.com/all/howtotakecar_rhtu.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_Cactus

Winter Wonderland Part 2

2010-01-08T08:00:00.001-06:00

Christmas Day, YEAH!!

Christmas Day was way more fun for playing in the snow. The blizzard had stopped so we just had lots of great snow to play in without the drizzle and ice hitting our faces! Lucy just loves the snow and gets so excited to play in it when we get any so she had the time of her life. This is one of those pictures where I had to trick her to look. I was holding her second BFF above the camera (her frisbee).

And here are some pics of all the snow we got although they dont really do it justice. The front porch was covered even with the planter of snow and higher in some spots with the drifts. The night before, all of the windows were all snowed on and we couldnt even see outside...but that went away when the sun came out.

Our door was snowed shut for several days as well because we never got out to scrape! Im sure the mail people loved us for that, oh well!

A few backyard pics of the drifts. Its hard to tell but it was a ton of snow!

Despite all the snow, we decided to brave the weather and roads and pack up and head out to Tulsa. We thought it was going to be decent by 1:00 or so but we were VERY wrong which we would find out later. It took about 45 minutes to make it to the Turnpike from our house. We saw well 100-150 cars abandoned on the sides of the roads between OKC and Tulsa and witnessed a few wrecks and close calls. People were driving so badly that day, they would blow by everyone and wipe-out. It was crazy! We had to pull over for one family and call 911 for them because they were injured and the other driver of the parked semi that they ran into didnt speak English!! People were driving so crazy that day I am just so happy and thankful we made it with minimal issues and no wrecks. And 3.5 hours later, we made it to Tulsa and didnt leave the house again until we came back to OKC on Sunday. This is how we spent our time there:

Lounging, watching lots of movies, playing in the snow and eating!!

While we were busy building a snow man, Lucy, Sampson and the Chihuahua's were playing in the snow.

Check out Shay's gloves...duct taped plastic bags over knitted gloves. She wanted something water proof and I guess it worked well :)

Second level completed.

Ta-Da!

The eyes were buttons, the nose and "sweater" buttons were dog bones, the mouth was licorice candy, the pipe was a dead plant and an old hat from my mom and a scarf I made last year.
By the time we left, the dog bones and licorice pieces were eaten by Lucy! Oops!

So that was the end of our traveling adventures that week and we made it back without any drama. In hindsight it was a poor decision to go to Tulsa but I am glad we made it safely and got to spend time with our family. It would have been sad to be without them this year.

Winter Wonderland Part 1

2010-01-06T21:17:00.006-06:00

Let's back up to Christmas Eve...where the updating begins. We had been planning to leave about 1:00 pm to go to Tulsa for a long weekend, but as we all know, everyone's plans changed rapidly. Luckily Matt didnt have to go to work so he took me to work which wasnt that bad yet but was awful on the way back home. It took him 45 minutes to get to my work (4 miles) and 30 minutes back!! Since we weren't going to travel, we immediately began our snow adventures!! We thought it would be fun to go walking in the blizzard to the church with Lucy. Well it wasn't really that fun in the blizzarding sideways snow but at least we got to play some at the church.

Lucy loves pictures, cant you tell? If ever we get a good one of her, its because we tricked her or got lucky.

This is in front of the church on our way back home. It was a long walk to and from with the snow hitting our faces.

Christmas Eve night we pretty much just hung out and caught up on house stuff that I hadn't taken care of since I had some time. Also, we did Christmas with each other on Wednesday night since we thought we were going to be gone. Also, we watched my all time favorite Christmas movie and Matt's not-so-favorite movie, "White Christmas." He came up with a crazy rule this year that he is limited to one viewing per Christmas movie a year!! Sometimes Matt can be a bah-humbug about Christmas stuff :)

And also, we did a Christmas craft with our animals/kids. Last year, Deanna got me an ornament that you make in my stocking and I made it this year. See below:

After I molded the plaster stuff in the circle shape, Matt helped Lucy make her paw print.

Then I helped Jackie make his paw print. Then you just let it dry for a couple of days. I forgot to take a final picture but you get the idea. I might even decorate it more, I dont know. Anyway, I am sure they all loved it and will treasure the experience forever.

And the final fun activity of the night, we let Lucy play with her laser friend, Dottie, outside in the snow. Here is a video of all the fun:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T09:13:00.003-06:00

Its been a while...Matt and I have been so busy as we always are but this time getting ready for Christmas and then the Winter Blizzard 2009 (bum, bum, bum) struck and we got stuck in Oklahoma City a little longer than planned. We made what in hindsight seemed to be a poor decision and head to Tulsa anyway on Christmas afternoon but we made it there semi-safely and got to spend some time with our family (stories to come in a later post). Then we braved the weather to come back, work for a few days, pack again, then headed out to H-town Wednesday evening which leads us to today. We are in Houston for the next few days to spend time with our family. We got in yesterday afternoon and spent the afternoon relaxing, opened gifts and waited for midnight to come by playing the ever popular paper-telephone game with some good friends! I actually stayed up this time which is an amazing feat sometimes. Which is more than Lucy can say for herself :)

Normally I dont make resolutions and keep them very well but I am going to this year and solicit the help of my friends to make sure I achieve these goals this year. Here is a list of some of the things I am hoping to acomplish this year:

1. Get my Etsy website and regular website up and running in full force. This time last year I said I was going to start an Etsy website "soon" and it has been a full year already and I am no where close. I have however made a user name and bought a website name as well. The Etsy use name is: shannonsknitnacks and my website name is: shannonsknitnacks.com at this moment in time unless I decide to change it :) I already have once! I have also been knitting up a storm this last year and crafting some other things as well. I have so many good ideas (I think) but not enough time to do them all. However, I think I have really improved my knitting a lot this past year enough to where I would feel comfortable selling things I make so I just need to get over the hump of designing a website and getting everything lined up to start selling online.

2. Update my facebook profile and stay better connected to friends on that and this blog much better than I have been doing. I am so behind on facebook that I havent changed my pic since we were still newleyweds and lived in our old house about 3 years ago now. Facebook is probably about to delete me because it suggested to my friends and my husband that they should try to "reconnect with me" by posting on my wall. I am so far removed that my mom and sister arent even my facebook friends currently. When I got an iphone a few months ago, I said I was going to get the app and update then and I still havent done that. So, I need to update that and stay better connected.

3. Try not to be so busy with work and too many commitments and spend more time with family and friends. I tend to make myself so busy that I dont get to do the things I would like for one reason or another. Or if I do, I am so tired that it is not as enjoyable as it should be. This year I didnt even make Christmas cards which was sad and I didnt put up our Christmas lights or any decor other than the tree which is very unlike me. But maybe it was just unavoidable this year. I have a more demanding job during the day that is not as laid back as the church job was and maybe it just takes some getting used to. Plus I have been really enthralled in my knitting and I pretty much knit anywhere and anytime. But anyway, I am going to try and be a better wife, sister, daughter, and friend this year hopefully. That's a big goal!

Merry Christmas from the Meredith's!

Christmas Light Bulb Cupcakes

2009-12-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yet another great cupcake idea from the awesome cupcake book Katie got me for my bday. I made these cute cupcakes for the kiddos in the Christmas play at church a few days ago. I think they turned out excellent. I was going to just leave them plain without the "cording" but I thought they looked like Easter eggs without it. It really completes the whole look.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the little electrical plug at the end of all the lights! The kids really liked them and I had fun making them. Thanks again Katie for the cupcake book :) It has really come in handy for cupcake ideas!!

Last weekend

2009-12-15T08:00:00.004-06:00

This year, I have been a little bah-humbug about my Christmas decorating this year. We have been beyond busy and tired this last 6 months or so and it was already well into December before we had time to do any kind of decorating. But you know that I cant just do nothing at all.

Matt and I usually use our fake tree but since we didnt want to get a whole bunch or stuff down, we thought it would be fun to get a real tree this year. Last weekend we did just that. We went to Horn Seed Co. and got a pretty Noble Fir tree and a beautiful Christmas cactus. We only got down the bubble lights, the ornaments, the stockings, the tree skirt and had a decoration that Monica gave me at Thanksgiving. Which might sound like a regular amount of Christmas decor to most people but as my sister puts it, our house looks like "Christmas threw up in it" usually so this is pretty toned down! But I am glad we did some and I like our tree alot and it kind of feels like Christmas is actually here now even though it has been rather warm this year.

Our pretty Christmas tree

My Christmas cactus. It will have magenta flowers on it in a few weeks. Some are even close to blooming now.

And on Sunday Matt had a very impromptu performance at Penn Square Mall. Our band director from OC came to Mayfair on Sunday morning and asked Matt if he wanted to play in a trombone choir with him and the UCO trombone choir. So he did and I went to watch them. They did a great job! It have never heard so many trombones play together at once but it is really pretty. They even invited Matt to join them on Friday afternoons if he ever gets a chance to go!!

They played about 30 classic Christmas tunes including: "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" and "Feliz Navidad" as well :) I thought I got several videos to choose from to post but apparently I deleted them because I can only find one. This is "Carol of the Bells." It wasnt the best one they played together but it is the only one I had on the camera still...enjoy!

* A disclaimer of the video after I watched it just now is that Blogger.com sucks and it always screws up my video editing but it wont upload the spliced version so this is kind of in the middle of the song but oh well. I am tired of messing with their video upload system. It makes me mad everytime I try to put a video on here. You would think that with so many people that use this website that they would make it more user friendly...one can only hope I guess :)

Houston Happenings Part Two

2009-12-09T23:06:00.004-06:00

I know it is way past Thanksgiving but I feel I should finish my post. So later Thankgiving day Matt's grandparents came over and we had a great meal and good time with them. We took this picture with them for Monica to make them a Christmas gift and we always laugh because he smiles like this in every single picture. With his mouth open. We took another one with all of us imitating him but i forgot to post it. But we pretty much spent the day watching football and consuming 10 times more calories more than we just burned off running that morning! And I guess I had been more tired than I thought from work and what not because I took a 3 hour nap late that afternoon and then turned right around and slept for 9 more hours after like a 3 hour break from sleeping!!

Aside from the race, we didnt make too many plans and events that we had to attend. We tried a couple of new restaurants, did some shopping, and hung out mostly. We tried a new pizza place that is New York style pizza that was really good. And it was funny because we ordered 3 pizzas to share but we had at least 4 different servers bring us like 7-8 pizzas and ask if they were ours. We also tried a new yogurt place like all the ones that were here and it was delicious of course. This picture below was taken at the riverwalk. We saw this purse from about 20 feet away and thought someone left it and so we were going to go see if it had an ID and got there and it turned out to be fake. It was this artistic display called "treasures from grandmas purse" or something silly like that with all kinds of things around that were part of it. I think all the people around were laughing at us!!

Oh yeah and one thing I was super excited about doing was roasting chesnuts this year. When we were in Tulsa I bought some at this whole foods store and took them to Houston and told everyone how awesome they were and how much I loved them in Vienna when I was there. Anyway, so I cooked them and when we went to try them, they were so nasty!! They tasted like a weird potato. It wasnt the worst thing I have ever eaten but it certainly wasnt the best thing by any means. We took a picture but I forgot to get it from Monica's camera.

So, as most elderly people do, Matt's grandparents have to wear depends. Monica bought some to take to them and before she did, we took some silly pics of Lucy in a pair. She looks like she is wearing the "Oops I crapped my pants" underwear from the SNL skit! She looked pretty cute but she didnt stand for it too long. After about 30 seconds she tried to tear it off!!!

And one last picture of our kiddo!

Houston Happenings Part One

2009-12-06T21:40:00.007-06:00

So after we came back from Tulsa, we had to work for 2 days then headed out for Houston at 9:00 pm at night because we both had to work late and finish packing. We decided to stop south of Dallas and stay at a hotel so we would be past all the bad traffic. We had booked a LaQuinta ahead of time hoping that it would be nice and it was. I was a little skeptical of staying in a small town because I didnt know if the hotel would feel safe but this place was brand new I think and only charged 5 dollars extra for dogs.

Lucy enjoyed the luxurious accoutrements: down pillows and blankets, leather furniture, a big window, fridge, flatscreen TV and a queen bed all to herself!

(We put her in the bed for the pics, she didnt actually sleep in the covers)!

We rolled into Houston the next day about high noon and hung out with the fam and cooked for Thanksgiving the next day. We had to cook early because we were all participating in the "Run Through the Woodlands" bright and early Thanksgiving Day. It was great weather for running, not too cold and we all finished with great time. Matt ran the 5-mile race in 46 minutes and Deanna and I ran it in 58 minutes. We have been training for it since the Race For The Cure and I am so proud that we finished. I was just thinking the other day that we have run in four races this year!! Three 5Ks and one 5-mile race. We plan to keep running through out the winter but it has to be at least 32 degrees or warmer for us to get out in that in the mornings.

Here we are before the race...nice and clean not sweaty and disgusting yet...

And John and Monica before the race...they walked the 3 mile race that day.

And here we are crossing the finish line. Matt finished first so I dont have a picture of him :( I did just look on the website and found one pic of Matt and like 10 of me but I cant copy the proof and I am not going to buy one bc they are expensive so I guess I am out of luck. There were so many of me and Deanna because we would wave and act crazy when the camera was close and they laughed and took pictures. But there were some regular ones too.

I think I will stop here and post the other half tomorrow...same bat time, same bat channel.....

Livin' on Tulsa Time

2009-11-28T13:09:00.006-06:00

Well, I am super behind on posts so I will attempt to do some pre-posting this weekend and catch everyone up-to-date with the Meredith fam. Anyway, two weeks ago we went to T-town to hang out with Shay and my mom. This time we stayed at Shay's apt. She lives in the corner of a second story duplex and Lucy really enjoys hanging out in the corner and talking to all the people, dogs, cats, squirrels and anything that walks by. (I really like this picture of Lucy)

...and so does Sampson (Shay's dog)

Also, another favorite of both dogs is looking out the window above the couch.

I also finished up my newest sccarf creation. My friend at work had an Old Navy scarf from a few years ago on the other day and I thought it was super cute so I decided to try and make it. It looks exactly like this one below that I made. I thought I would be cool and trendy and take some pics of it in the outside settings as you can see.

I am really pleased with the way it turned out and actually kept it for myself. In a whole year of knitting and all the things I have made, this is the first one I made for myself!

And lastly, Shay got her first lesson in knitting and made a whole scarf in a few hours. She says she is "not crafty" but picked it up in like 5 minutes. I think she is just foolin me. It was a really enjoyable weekend filled with lots of lounging, a little shopping and good food. You can't beat that!

Dr. Matt in the making

2009-11-17T22:00:00.003-06:00

It's a rare occasion these days when I get to go to work with Matt and check out the awesomeness of his lab. But a couple of weeks ago we went up there on Saturday afternoon so I took some pictures to share. I dont know how he gets things done but I guess he does because he is almost finished. Everytime I go there, I just want to clean up his mess but I never do!

Every good doctoral candidate needs a good workspace...clean and organized to get proper brain juices flowing! You cant tell it by this picture but the shelf looks like it is about to fall on your head when you sit at the desk because it is overloaded with heavy books and what not. (Not pictured: dirty dishes and shoes and other random junk all around).

And of course, plenty of hazardous chemicals that not only can kill you, but kill trees and fish according to the above label!

I sat on the sidelines and knitted while waiting for Matt to finish up his work.

Matt made some crazy chemical a few days before and let it dry in the bottle. This is what it looked like after he took a close up picture of it through the glass bottle. It looks like Mars or something to me. And if you are really interested, Matt drew the chemical diagram at the bottom of what this is that he made. I'm sure all of you will open up a new tab and look it up straight away wont you!!

In all seriousness, I am super proud of my husband and cant believe he is almost Dr. Matt. How weird is that! He will be finished officially in May but maybe earlier than that. Please keep us in your prayers as we are actively searching out jobs for him and if you hear of a chemist opening, please let him know.

another scarf and hat combo

2009-11-17T21:40:00.004-06:00

and this is my favorite so far...i think i say that a lot but it is. I think I tend to like the ones the most that I come up with on my own the best. I have had this pattern in my head for a while but just now got around to trying it out. I will make slight changes the next time I make it but in general, really proud of this one (in a humble way of course)!!

She's my best friend....

2009-11-16T22:23:00.005-06:00

Lucy and Charlie had a sleep over weekend at our house this weekend. As always, the combo is full of shenanigans but too cute to stay mad at for long. I think Jack was glad she came over too. He thinks that Charlie is scared of him so he acts like tough stuff when she is here. We tried to get some good videos but they didnt turn out really well so I will just share some pics.

A mid morning hug :)

Jack is hanging out in Lucy's new bed for her crate which looks kind of like a raft.

Lucy's leg is on Charlie's back, looks weird.

Pooped doggies.

Jack is stalking the little birds in the bush outside the window.

And then there is Charlie looking smart! This one survived all the playing for now. Other toys were not as lucky.

Peyton's Language

2009-11-10T21:26:00.002-06:00

Last week, Kenny Mayne did a satirical clip about Peyton Manning's play calling from the line of scrimmage. I really like Peyton Manning and I hope he is as good of a guy in real life as he always seems in the football world. Anyway, it's funny so I thought I would share with you!

Pink/White scarf set

2009-11-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

My most recent knitting project. I knit alot now during football on Saturdays and Sundays because otherwise I dont have very much time. But then I miss out on all the football.! THere needs to be more hours in the day! Anyway, I intended these to be for Matt's cousin whose name drew in the Christmas drawing but there seems to be some confusion among the family members about who drew her so I might keep it for myself!

Silly Lucy

2009-11-07T08:00:00.002-06:00

The other day, we looked over on the couch and Lucy was looking very creepy. She was sleeping but her tongue was sticking WAY out of her mouth. I tried to get a picture but she had scooted it back in some. Still creepy looking though.

And then the other day I bought her a new walmart girls sweatshirt. I put it on her when she stays outside when it is chilly. It is way cheaper to buy a kids sweatshirt and cut it than buying a dogs coat. But I put the sleeves on her legs and they looked like 80's leg warmers.

She was not amused and quickly tried to pull them off and play tug!

girls night in with dwts

2009-11-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Last Monday I got to babysit Olivia for the first time! Katie had some baby-free shopping she needed to do so I got keep little Olivia. Lucy was so excited she couldnt keep from trying to lick her all night. But we pretty much just stayed on the couch after some bouncing/walking the house until she fell asleep. And Monday is Dancing with the Stars night so we managed to fit that in too. I know Olivia was really interested in seeing who did well and who screwed up bigtime! So much so that she slept right through it all until Katie came back and made her wake up to eat :)

Hanging out with the girls!

Cumpkin Parving....

2009-11-04T21:37:00.006-06:00

thats what I accidentally called it one day last week. But anyway, last weekend Matt and I hosted a pumpkin carving contest at the church last weekend. We bought tons of pumpkins and made lots of food and had a grand ol' time. I actually didnt carve anything because I was super tired after a looooooong week but I enjoyed watching everyone else have fun. Here are some pics from all the festivities:

mini pumpkin pies

super chocolaty spiderweb cookies

Michael took 1st place with his spooky-eyes pumpkin

Gayland and Jackson took second with Bullwinkle

And Derek took 3rd with his ghost pumpkin

Matt carved a water molecule in true science nerd fashion but I dont have a good pic so I couldnt post it. But it was nerdy belive-you-me :) We had tons of other great pumpkins too! But only 3 could win and I couldnt decide so that is why I had other people be the judges :)

crazy dancing guys

2009-10-27T22:44:00.002-05:00

Matt found this video today and said it was pretty funny...I thought I would share with everyone.

New beanie/scarf combo

2009-10-25T23:00:00.001-05:00

I hesitated to post this because this is likely a Christmas present for one of my readers but I am proud of this set and really like it so I wanted to show you all! I made it them today while watching football this afternoon and evening. My favorite is the hat because it was a pattern I thought of in my head a month or so ago and wanted to try. It actually is a variation of the pattern I want to make because of the yarn thickness but I really like it. All of the pieces are made of super soft almond colored acrylic yarn.

This buckle is for the scarf as a different option to cuffing it around your neck.

Utility Bags

2009-10-24T14:52:00.005-05:00

I finally got around to making these things for my kitchen. I havent come up with a cute trendy name for them yet, so utility bags it is, for now. The idea for them came from an article in Country Living I think. Pam saw them and thought it looked like something I would make. I guess she was right :) The white fabric with yellow flowers is some old vintage fabric from a lady at church and the yellow flower patterned fabric were just some "fat squares" from Joanne's fabric. I like those things alot because you can usually get just what you need without a lot extra wasted fabric. And often times, like today, they are on sale for $1.00. I went to purchase just a couple of yellow ones and ended up buying like 30 of them for future projects.

I had actually made some last week but they were too short and the utensils were kind of falling out. Thats why I made more this week. These turned out a lot better. I am very pleased with them. I wanted them to hang above the stove but I forgot that there is some plastic back splash stuff that you cant screw into. Oh well.

And they can be multi-purpose as well. A few months ago I made some for Katie's nursery to hang on the side of her changing station to hold wipes, diapers, etc. They could also be used in a bathroom to hold curling irons and hair dryers and stuff. Although if you have been in our bathroom, you would know that it is WAY to small for something like that. I will have to wait on that for another house.

lucy, meet olivia....olivia, meet lucy

2009-10-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, Katie came over with Charlie and Olivia and Lucy got to meet Olivia for the first time. I tried to get some good pics but as you know, Lucy is not a fan of the camera. But a couple turned out pretty good. It was cute because at first, Lucy didnt even notice there was a baby in the room until she cooed and then she was like, "whats that." Then as most dogs do, she sniffed her baby butt significantly whilst wagging her butt like crazy. Then when I was holding Olivia, she kept trying to lick her face but I wouldn't really let her do that. So she had to settle for her little baby ears. That is what I was trying to capture here but she was camera shy.

It was cute because she was licking her ear so much that she got her baby hair and made it curly because of all the licking :)

This one looks like Olivia is mocking people that make silly faces at babies. I guess Lucy is ready for some baby-sitting. She seemed to really like Olivia :)

Cuddly buddies

2009-10-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here is a pic of Lucy and Jack cuddling. I didnt even force this one. Totally on their own doing.

How much do I love my mom...

2009-10-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

Well this ought to prove it :)

So after the race, we rushed home, took showers super fast, packed our clothes, packed lucy's things, loaded the car with a whole bunch of stuff and bolted for T-town because we had to make it to a wedding in 3 hours. For a while now, we had been planning on doing the race, going to Janoah's sisters' wedding and hanging out with the fam this weekend. My mom's friend had a dresser that we thought we would transport to her since we were coming as well. Well, I didnt think about all the logistics before we headed out so I had an interesting trip to Tulsa.

For one, I forgot that Lucy is a large dog with a large crate that had to come, along with a dresser, a whole bunch of other stuff and two people. After we packed the car, I decided to sit in the back so as to not make our dog get freaked out and let her sit in the front seat. So basically, Lucy sat in first class and I sat in coach.

At first, I thought I could just sit in the 16 inch sliver the whole way and it would be alright. Well my hips are not that small so that didnt last long. Eventually, I went to this position:

laying like a sardine in a can. And thus we began our trek to Tulsa. Thankfully, we made it without too many more issues. There isn't much I wouldn't do for my mom, and Lucy apparently :)

On a side note, the wedding was fun and so was hanging out at mom's. We got to watch football and sleep in. Doesnt get much better than that.

Janoah and the bride, Jordan!

Race For The Cure 2009

2009-10-14T21:50:00.006-05:00

Last Saturday, Matt and I, along with a group from church and 16,000 Oklahomans participated in the event. It was probably the coldest day of the year (post-summer) so far. The temp was 39 degrees when we woke up and around 41-45 degrees for the race. If you know how I feel about running you would know this was not good news for me. I am totally a fair weather, fair terrain runner so I had to get pumped to run in the frigid-artic tundra. And actually, it wasnt too bad once we started the race. Only my hands were frost-bitten but got better after about half the race.
This is a before shot of some of our team. We had planned to all meet together at 7:30 but several people got stuck in the traffic. The night before, I pretty much got "high" off of sharpie markers making all these signs with the names of our Mayfair breast cancer survivors to take a picture with but we didnt have enough people to hold them all so we just held this one sign. Wah, wah...

And here is a pic I stole from Annaleise's blog of most of our group at the end. I didnt think to bring my camera with me for a group pic at the end but at least some others did. All together we had about 19 people participate with us from Mayfair and we all made it to the end. Thanks to everyone who participated!

This one's for you Shay...

2009-10-06T22:19:00.003-05:00

I hope you start feeling better soon and dont turn into a pig or bird or something!!

If your not a Seinfeld fan, this is an episode where everyone at Elaine's work gets on her nerves because they bring cake for every little thing and sing songs for every occasion. It is pretty funny and just making fun of that.

Baby Santa Christmas cocoon photo prop

2009-09-27T22:16:00.004-05:00

Well, finally my new knitting needles came in the mail and I got to make this photo prop this weekend. I think it will work out okay but I will try and make some adjustments on my next set. It usually takes one or two tries to figure out exactly how you want to make something...or at least it does for me anyway. Here are the pics:

Now I just need to borrow a baby to take pics in for official posting on my website later. Maybe Katie will lend me Olivia for a bit!!!

GET TO THE CHOPPAH!!!

2009-09-24T22:47:00.002-05:00

Interpret this however you want :)

Coolest Competition Ever

2009-09-23T22:41:00.004-05:00

Check this out! This could be me some day if I run out of every other possible hobby:

He got 1st place in the World Beard and Moustache Championships!

check out the rest of the results here:

http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com

Matt's long lost buddy has returned.

2009-09-22T10:00:00.001-05:00

His yellow hat! I am not really sure how long it has been missing but I think over a year now and I have been receiving the blame for it too. This was Matt's trademark clothing at OC. He wore this thing everyday even in the summer just to bug people. When I first met Katie and told her that Matt was my husband, she said, "I didnt know his name in college, just that he wore a yellow hat every day."

He thought I threw his beloved yellow hat away along with his super nasty duct tape sandals. BUT GUESS WHAT? I didnt dispose of either item (no matter how much I would have liked to (and almost did) throw away his sick sandals)!! While looking for some other stuff in the garage, he found his sandals and apparently his yellow buddy has been lost in the black hole of his trunk. But alas, all is right in the world now....yellow hat is back!

knitting attack!

2009-09-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Well this weekend I was at it again with the knitting needles. Last weekend, I bought some knitting patterns for baby cocoon photo props and ordered some needles so I have been super-stoked about learning how to make some new things. I still havent received my new needles in the mail so I have only been able to make these hanging cocoons. But here is a sneak preview:

I dont have a hanging picture of this first one but you get the idea. A lot of people these days are getting these artsy, super-cute pictures of their newborns and often use pod/cocoon props like these. My friend Courtney suggested I learn how to make these and I am glad she did because they are fun and really easy to make.

I made this one also this weekend. Our first test subject will be baby Olivia later this week. I will be sure to post pics if they turn out well. Also, later this week I am going to make a Christmas/Santa themed cocoon and baby hat that would make super cute holiday pics or photographs. And you can bet I will be posting pics of those too!! I am so excited to make them :)

And in case you were looking for a more multipurpose craft, not only are they baby photo props, they can also be homemade mullets. For those occasions when you dont have time to grow a proper mullet and need one in a hurry. Maybe I should make a whole bunch and sell them at the fair! Just kidding...that was a cheap joke!

If your sitting at your computer with nothing to do,

2009-09-20T21:20:00.003-05:00

then check out this website...its pretty funny and a little unbelievable! It is a website devoted to the crazy characters that you come in contact with at Wal-mart. At the top of page 2 we have some stars from Oklahoma. Also, note the not-so-happy Wal-mart smiley face. I will add it to my website list in case you would like to re-visit this website at a later date to check up on what you have been missing out on.

Tis the season for scarves and beanies

2009-09-15T21:34:00.002-05:00

It is almost upon us, winter that is, and I am trying to get a jump start on my scarf and beanie stock. Whilst I was at Shay's house being one of her nurses, I was able to knit a couple of beanies. I found this great website with tons of knitting patterns for all kinds of projects and luckily I got to try a couple of them out.I am pleased with the way they turned out, even though it doesnt appear that way in the pics. They yellow/green hat is a roll brim hat with some cabling at the bottom and the red/blue hat is a cable at the bottom with a button flap on the side. It is kind of hard to tell the detail in these pics. These beanies go with the scarf I made about a month ago. Maybe they might be finding their way to you sometime soon!

funny video

2009-09-13T13:58:00.003-05:00

Shay showed me this video last night and i thought i would share it because it is pretty funny. We were talking about Depends and it came up.

update on everyone

2009-09-12T20:56:00.004-05:00

Well as you can see from Ryan and Katie's blog, they are doing just great as can be (aside from minimal sleep). Thursday evening, I began my Oklahoma hospital tour with a sneak peak of the baby Olivia since I was going to be in Tulsa the whole weekend! She is so precious!

Then after I got to spend some time visiting with Ryan and Katie, I headed to T-town to see my sister following her surgery. The surgery went "perfectly" the doctor said. I got to stay with Shay at the hospital and then she came home the next day. She is really sore and sometimes a bit nausiated but doing well other than that. She has a couple of weeks to go for recovery and is supposed to take it easy for the next few months along with physical therapy. I am glad we have been able to be here and help this weekend.
Please keep both the Isenberg's and Shay in your prayers in the coming weeks.

things to pray about

2009-09-09T22:26:00.002-05:00

1. My sister (25 years young mind you) is having back surgery early in the morning on Thursday to repair a herniated disc and a bulging disc. They also said she has the beginning of disc degeneration!! She has had back issues on and off for a long time so I am glad that this might fix them forever.

2. Ryan and Katie are having their first child sometime in the wee hours of the morning or late tonight!! I am so excited for them and I know they are ready to meet Olivia Ryan!

So please keep these two things in your prayers the next few days and I will update later.

randomness of sorts

2009-09-08T22:30:00.001-05:00

Since i am still behind on all the updating, here is a compilation of our lives the last couple of weeks that would make for very short blog posts individually:

On our way home from Waltonia, we stopped at a great outlet mall in Roundrock, TX. We spent a couple of hours there and didnt even see half the mall. Matt really hit the goldmine at the Adidas store though. He bought a plethora of normally very expensive Houston Rockets and other brightly orange colored gear at a steal of a price.

As you know, orange is Matt's second favorite color...only to yellow:

The best part of the whole outfit is that Matt got this awesome jacket that says Space City (one of Houston's nicknames) on the front, with a Rockets logo on the back and besides that it is yellow, the inside lining is "the space". Its pretty cheesy but awesome too!

Then, 2 weeks ago, I surprise Matt with a secret date when he got back from DC to go see Earth Wind and Fire and Chicago. We had talked about going before I got laid off then decided not to spend extra money until I got another job. And to my surprise, they still had tickets a few days before. It was a funktastic concert, as Matt called it but also interesting because it was at the Zoo Ampitheatre which we have never been to before. It is like the fair, it brings out a lot of crazies wearing lots of crazy clothes with lots of crazy haircuts!!

Unfortunately, we couldnt take our camera in so these are the only 2 pics we got. I made Matt wear a blindfold and everything but I think he kind of knew.

And then, last weekend was our 7th Annual Fantasy Football draft into the Leaugue of Ultimate Destruction! Shay got the good end of the deal but our team is not too shabby. It was a good time had by all and I finally got to try and make this guacomole football field. I thought I was going to have all this room to make every yard line, hash marks, logos, etc. But as it turns out, there wasnt even enough room to use the correct amout of football players (tomatoes) on the field. But it turned out pretty well anyway...and yes the white piping is sour cream. It kind of grossed me out to pipe sour cream instead of icing!

The destruction has already begun!!

And then this last weekend, Matt's parents came down to visit us and we had a grand ol' time just hanging out and relaxing. We didnt do a whole lot but play with the animals, go for walks, cook, and eat at Sophabella's.

Lucy being really weird. She never lays like this long than about 15 seconds.

And Oreo and Lucy never get this close but never say never I guess.

And by Matt's special request, I made him a chocolate cheesecake. It was supposed to be the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory but it wasnt quite that. It was more like a Ghiradelli Chocolate Stumpy cheesecake that was really confusing and slightly difficult to make. But he liked it a lot so that is all that matters. And in the end, it looked pretty!

Finally, here is a shot of Matt, Derek, and I dressed up as bible characters from the book of Genesis as a celebration to the last day of our 1.5 year long study in Genesis. Can you guess who we are:

2009-09-02T21:28:00.005-05:00

So this is actually a "guest" appearance by the other half of the Chemistry of Clutch blog. I took a trip to our nations capitol a couple weeks ago for a chemistry conference so I figured I had better tell you guys about it and show you some pictures. It was a spur of the moment trip so Shannon didn't get to go, but my sister went and got a free hotel room out of it. Most of my time there was spent at the conference listening to talks, looking at posters, and talking to other scientists about research stuff. I also had a few job opportunities pop up in the form of interviews at the career fair there. One was with Roche and the other was with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. I also had a possible opportunity pop up that could lead to a job at Michigan State. I had some productive discussions about biofuel cells with some of the top researchers in that area, so the meeting was very productive. That's a basic summary of the meeting, and here's some pictures of the first day that we got there and I actually got to go see some of the sights.

The washington monument

The capitol building

The WWII memorial

The Lincoln memorial as seen from the Washington monument

It looked really big up close....

Honest Abe

The Washington monument and reflecting pool seen from the Lincoln memorial

At the Natural Science Museum, this furry guy was not alive

But this guy was! Some stupid lady held out her hand to hold it after I did and then jerked it back a the last second and it fell on the floor. Poor hissing cockroach....
And of course, what trip to DC would be complete without a mention of the Obamanator. This was a whole store with just Obama stuff in it, including this cardboard cut-out of him! I think I learned more about the national healthcare plan by talking to cardboard Obama than from the real thing on CNN!

Craftiness all around

2009-08-31T19:34:00.002-05:00

Well I went to Waltonia with the intention of making at least two scarfs but only made one. However, it turned out well and if I dont give it away, I will keep it myself.

I wont let a little thing like the dirty river get in my way of knitting. It was too dirty for me the first day from the rain. Knitting was a better use of my time :)

And by request of Deanna, I brought my cupcake supplies and we made an awesome cupcake creation. I got the idea from my cupcake book. The gave the idea of making a family tree with cupcakes and that is exactly what we did. We also made a cupcake cake with the river and mini replica of the cabins and landscape of Waltonia.

The whole fam...

Grandma and Grandad

Margaret (who actually isnt related but a close friend and coworker of Matt's grandad for like 20 years. She comes to Waltonia every year).Aunt Mary

Trina (matt's aunt) and her family

Matt's Uncle and fam (he has one green eye and one brown eye in case you were wondering why there are two colors on there).

Andy (Matt's other uncle), Sally and Hudson
Our family (John, Monica, Deanna, Matt, Me)

The Waltonia landscape.

Hudson helped me draw all the faces ahead of time so I could get the features right and make the glasses and things.

Us eating ourselves, which sounds creepy.

And lastly, our annual picture by the sign. Until next year....

A vist to the Bat Cave, Stonhenge, Easter Island, and other adventures...

2009-08-29T21:49:00.006-05:00

Every year, we always try to find a fun side trip to take one day or place to go. This year, Deanna had looked up one of the bat caves to go to and watch the bats fly out at night. It was so awesome and a full moon, even more ominous! We went to an old abandoned train tunnel where Mexican bats migrate to every year and mate and live while its warm. By the end of August every year, there are 3 million bats that live in the tunnel that come out every night to feed (we went at the beginning of August). A school in Austin does research about bats here and helps protect the area to ensure the bats keep coming back every year. Apparently, tons of people come here throughout the summer to watch the bats leave. It is about 10 minutes long and is an incredible sight to see. The video doesnt do it justice. We even saw a hawk swoop in to catch some dinner for himself. Here are some interesting facts you might not have known about bats:

1. These bats eat millions and millions of insects each night and save farmers over $1.7 million dollars each year.

2. The enormous amount of guano they produce is sold as fertilizer in Texas.

3. You are more likely to get rabies from a dog or squirrel than from a bat. And you are likely to not see a bat flying that is rabid because it is too sick to be flying.

4. The moms leave the cave to give birth and they only have one baby/year. Then they return to the cave after that.

5. The young bats become the scouts. They are the first to leave the cave a few at a time before the whole group emerges.

Well now that you are properly informed...you can now view the video. Its pretty long so you might not watch all of it if you dont want.

They come out a few at a time and then the big swarm comes. Its like an F5 bat tornado, then they fly up into the sky.

This is a zoomed in view of one bat that Matt got a picture of. They move so fast it was hard to get a good picture. Behind us is the tunnel they live in, an old abanded train tunnel. We went down the trail after they flew out not during because it is too dangerous. It was the rankest smell I have ever smelled in my life. I could literally not breath with out stuffing my face into my shirt. Needless to say, I didnt stay down there long.

On the last day, we went to Stonehinge/Easter Island....

Well actually it was a replica. Some guy built a 2/3rds size replica of these statues on his land for some reason and people can go in and check it out at their leasure. I havent been to either place so it was pretty cool. Here are a few pics:

Matt being Sampson

Pretending to kill Matt on the sacrificial stone.

And Matt picking the nose of the Easter Island guy.

The only other exciting/eventful things that happened were:

1. Our car got hit by our cabin neighbor one morning. But she had insurance luckily and it is already fixed.

2. My hair dryer exploded on the last day when I was using it. Flames and smoke and the whole bit.

One more post to come about the crafty/baking stuff I did and I that will be all for this trip.

so back to the family reunion week...

2009-08-27T21:41:00.011-05:00

Aside from all the fun animals, we spent a few hours every day in the river and doing whatever else we felt like the rest of the day.

This is a view from our dock at the cabinsDustyn prooved to be quite the entertainer that week. He was shy at first but came out of his shell later in the week. More to come about that later. You can tell I am not related by blood because I am about a foot shorter than Matt and Deanna :)

And on the last day, we went to the dam and played. Last year we discovered this diamond in the rough and thought we would keep up our new tradition by going here on the last day. There is about an 18 inch spot on the whole dam that everyone takes turns sliding down. Last year and this year, Matt has torn the butt of his pants from sliding which is weird because it is super smooth on this part. It is super fun but kind of dangerous. We saw someone wipeout and hit his head on the cement and probably received a concussion. Then we saw the sign pictured above on our way out. I guess we missed it coming in!!

As mentioned previously, we had lots of fun playing with Dustyn, Andrew and Hannah (Matt's second cousins). Aside from us "big kids" they were the only kids there. Matt and Andrew and melting solder in water...a mini science experiment whilst on vacation. :)

And he also taught Dustyn the necessary skills involved in disc golf. Not only did Dustyn want to do want to play with Matt, he wanted to stand super far away where Matt was instead of close for a tiny kid and he wanted to have as many discs as Matt, not just one. It was super cute!This looks like an ad for Omega putters to me!
And every kids favorite game is Peek-A-Boo with a corona box isnt it? He was carrying it around on his head then I guess it was my turn. And lastly, he was obsessed with drinking my tea. I guess unsweet-dilute-weak tea is his new fav drink! He would run around the table and stop every time to have a drink out of my tea bottle...maybe it was just the bottle, who knows.

**Thats it for tonight...two more post updates about our crazy side trips and crafting to come later tomorrow.

Back to Blogging with a mini-update (Waltonia 2009)

2009-08-23T21:04:00.010-05:00

Well blogging friends its been a while since we have posted. We have been in and out of town these past 3 weeks having loads of fun starting with our trip to Kerrville, Texas to a place called Waltonia Lodges for Matt's annual family reunion. As always, we had many adventures and lots of family fun, floating and food! The first day, before we got to the cabin, we went shopping at some stores we have nevere been to along with an afternoon of shopping in Fredricksburg (a small German town near to Kerrville). The pictures below were taken at a store store called Wildseed Farms where they sell a multitude of items ranging from plants, to jewelry, to local food and wine and many other things. They have a HUGE field covered in sunflowers that are easily 8 feet tall. We bought some seeds to plant next season and see how they turn out.Every year, there are always baby animals of all sorts running around everywhere. Usually there is a tame baby dear but not this time . They always get fed by all of the people staying. These baby goats were actually too young still to eat food, they were still nursing.This little pig is one of three that were born last year. I guess they are little pot belly pigs because they are full grown.This is one of the momma donkeys. She couldnt reach the river easily so I found a cup and gave her water for like 30 minutes one cup at a time before I finally went to the cabin and got a bowl. That was much easier.

Well I had intended to write more on this blog but it is late-ish, my computer is dying and I dont want it to be too long so I will continue again tomorrow hopefully.

Hudson the actress!

2009-07-29T22:35:00.004-05:00

Hudson is Matt's super talented cousin who lives in New York and does all kinds of fun stuff in the movie industry. She has a website called the New York Fakery in which she makes props for shows and movies. You can view it here. But now, she is trying to land a role on the show Madmen. I have never seen the show but it is a period drama set in the 1960's and she has the chance to win a walk on role. But she needs all of our help so if you have time between now and August 11th, go here and vote for her. You just click on the 5th star to give her a 5 star vote. to increase her ratings. You can vote once a day until the deadline. Thanks for helping!!

Is this gramatically correct?

2009-07-24T19:19:00.003-05:00

Well the other day, Matt and I were walking home from Nate and Chellie's house and I looked up and noticed this sign:

This is the street that we live on apparently, only shouldn't it be 52nd street? Plus, how do you even pronounce this? I have walked down this street hundreds of times since we lived here and never noticed this before. Chellie, you should tell you neighbor that she should be calling the city on embarrasing incorrect signage rather than spending her time bothering you all That would be classified as a big typo in my book!!

Funny Lucy video

2009-07-22T10:00:00.001-05:00

The other day I decided to do a little vacuuming because it was just too dirty to go on. Normally, Lucy doesnt care one bit about the vacuum but today she did not want it to clean the ottomans as seen in the video. And Charlie was helping Lucy combat the traitor as well with her fierce bark.

And here is a pic of Lucy cuddling with Matt. Too cute to pass up a picture opportunity!

Harry Potter Cupcakes

2009-07-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

I made these cute cupcakes for my mom's late birthday festivities this weekend in honor of our family movie outing to see none other than the new Harry Potter movie. Shay had sent me a pic last week of some similar cupcakes so I thought it would fun to make them.

Brown scraggly hair, blue eyes, black round glasses, and a lightning bolt scar of course!!

Its finally finished!!!

2009-07-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

And on its way. Bopha, I finally finished Madden's baby blanket! I am sorry it took so long but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. In fact, after I give my fingers a rest, I am going to make one for my house, but with different colors. Thank you for letting me make your baby blanket and I hope it works out well for you.

This week three years ago....

2009-07-19T13:22:00.009-05:00

Matt and I were in beautiful Belize on our honeymoon.

We just celebrated our 3 year anniversary on July 15th! "I cant Belize" we have been married that long already! (thats what it said on our car that night when we drove off)

(Three really pretty roses for three years!)

(Matt wanted to hold the beans up for some weird reason that I forgot)

We have had such a great marriage so far and feel that God has blessed us in so many ways. Matt is almost finished with his school, I just got a great job quickly after being laid off a couple of weeks ago, we have a great family and church family, and the list goes on. Matt definately has joined the super elite "best husband ever club." Anyway, since I didnt have a blog back in the day when we got married, here are some pics from that wondrous occasion:The proposal

These were the shirts that Matt made for us to wear rehearsal night. Hence the meaning of the blog name in case you ever wondered where that came from.

The bridesmaids bouquets. I made all of them, including mine and the boutonnieres. I love flower arranging!!
Matt's first look at me in my dress. We had a private "first look" so we could see each other before the ceremony and take pictures of everyone as much as possible too.They had to wait outside the auditorium and look in at first. Then they came inside to take pics.The wedding crew, minus me and Matt I guess :)I think this was taken during a prayer by Matt's dad in the ceremony.Matt's THREE grooms cakes! They were pretty awesome!

Rob and the chocolate fountain get in a duel.

Cutting the cake.

Brennon made us official...I was so glad he did the ceremony but sad because this is like 1 of about 3 pics we have of him from that night :(

Leaving for an awesome honeymoon.

It was the best day EVER!! I love you Matt!!

Almost finished...

2009-07-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

I am 3/4 of the way finished and I am going to try and get it done this weekend so Shay can take it back to you Bopha!

It was the "bomb.com" shower

2009-07-16T14:37:00.004-05:00

At least thats what Derek called it! And I think Katie and Ryan had a good time too. If you havent already read Katie's post, I am going to recap the shower as well. Well for me, it all started on Friday night when I was attempting to decide what cupcakes I was going to make for Katie and our fellow church friends. After many failed attempts to pipe the design of her baby room fabric, I decided that I was going to make an army of babies (cupcakes that is). I had already planned to make 24 but then when the other plan failed, I went ahead and decided to make 60 little babies!

So in the midst of finding a lost dog, returning it, getting my haircut, and helping with a wedding on Saturday, the cupcakes were made (with the help of my crafty partner in crime, Joanne Steward).

And here they are:

Babies Everywhere!!!

The crybabies,

the babies with pacifiers and bibs, and the babies with bottles.

Here is a closeup of some and below is a picture of the cute doll bunkbeds and other vintage decor that the ladies picked out.Some other girls got crafty too and made these cute arrangements of clothes, diapers, and who know what else stuffed inside.

Doesnt Ryan looked thrilled about the shower AND to become a father!!!

This was one of the biggest showers in a while. There were at lease 50 people there. Katie is sooooo popular!

But anyway, it was a fun time and I was glad to be able to make something special (no pun intented) for her shower. Thanks for always being a great friend to me Katie and congratulations on your new baby to come. Its too bad I wont be able to watch her :(

Shannon To The Rescue!!

2009-07-15T09:41:00.004-05:00

I got up early since I couldnt go back to sleep and decided to take Lucy on a walk before it got too hot. About half way through a man in a car pulled up beside me and said he lost his dog wanting to know if I had seen him, I hadnt but decided to myself I would try and look later after we finished our walk. He told me what the dog looked like, his name and where he lived in case I found him. However, when we were about two blocks from home, I saw a dog matching that description sprint across the road from our house so I ran home with Lucy, threw her outside, and got in the car to catch the dog. About 5 minutes later, I found him and took him home to his family. Apparently the toddler son had let him outside when the gate was open and he escaped. He was at least a half a mile away from home. But anyway, I was so happy he could be reunited with his family because I would be so sad if I lost Lucy or Jack forever because they ran away...or worse, get hit by a car again!!!

Here is a video about a dog that was found far far away from home....I think he was 1800 miles away from home. A testament about getting your animals chipped. It really does work!!

Winner - Winner - 100 calorie grilled piece of chicken with 2 lbs of brocolli and a turkey ball - Dinner!!

2009-07-10T11:14:00.005-05:00

Well last night was a real fun time for me. I went with my mom to surprise my sister in Tulsa. Shay has been a part of Biggest Loser (like the show) but through her church for the past three months. She was picked to be on a team of 5 competing against another team of 5 to see who could do the best to improve their life through weight loss. The church paid for a 3 month membership at a gym with a personal trainer that they each met with regularly to provide them with a plan that would help them suceed and to help be accoutable to them. She could only eat 900 calories/day! That might not seem like alot because it doesnt to me, but Shay said she actually ate a lot of food, she just had to make wiser choices about what she ate. Anyway, her trainer was awesome and helped all the ladies on her team lose weight and feel great! And guess what?? SHAY WON!! Not only did her team win, but she won the overall contest by being the biggest loser! I dont know if she would want me to tell everyone how much weight she lost on the world wide web, so I wont, but she looks wonderful. I am so proud of her and look up to her for accomplishing a great feat. She is an inspiration to me and so many people. So anyway, I just wanted to brag on my sis and let everyone know how great a job she did these past few months and will continue to do I am sure. I did a poor job of taking pictures last night at the presentation so I dont have many to share but I have a couple.

Here is Shay on stage with her team telling about the process and how they made it through and succeeded.

And here is a picture of their team and trainer last night after a celebratory dinner at Los Cabos mexican restaurant. (Shay is the 3rd from the left)

Update for Bopha #2

2009-07-08T12:00:00.001-05:00

Well, here is what it looks like now:

Only half way to go!

H-Town 4th of July trip

2009-07-07T10:00:00.002-05:00

Matt and I went to Houston this weekend. We always try to take advantage of paid holidays that make for a long weekend to go to Houston since it takes so long to drive there and back. It makes the trip more worth while and seem longer. Anyway, this time, unlike most times, we didnt have anything special planned but good ole' relaxing and hanging out. We took Lucy to our friends house to go swimming. I think I was more excited than she was but we all had fun, including Lucy. She was just a little aprehensive when she had to swim where she couldnt touch.

Doesn't she look like she loves it (not).

We also made homemade Milky Way ice cream, cooked steaks, enjoyed the fireworks from our prime time seats on I-45 highway with friends, did a little shopping, went to church, watched a few movies (including Judge Dredd and Comando - which arent very good and Valkyrie - which was good), ate at Dairy Queen, Jack-In-The-Box, Chuy's and tried some jalapeno cheetos (which were delicious by the way) and I caught up on some knitting. It was a good weekend!

Here are some silly pics of Lucy with Matt:

Family + Fro + Lick = Family Frolic!!!

2009-07-06T20:24:00.005-05:00

The annual family gathering for my work friends and family was a couple weeks ago. And in case you dont get the title of this blog, the picture of the back of the shirt should explain:

This year, Beth planned a super fun time at the bowling alley. Of course not everyone comes to events like these, but we had over half of the employees of PPHHC there and their family members. My mom, Beth, Matt and I all played on the same lane and of course Matt schooled us all but some games were pretty close. I think I got over 100 for 2 of 3 games so it was a success in my book.

Here are some pics from the day:

Mom, Matt and me

Keona and Kim

Jesse and his crew

Beth, my mom, and Starr

And what family/friend gathering would be complete without a group photo. Sadly this will likely be my last family frolic because I was laid off on Wednesday. So, if you know of a pharmacy tech job or another fun job you would like to suggest, let me know. I am awaiting the results of an interview I already had last week but am still looking at other options as well.

Project Baby Blanket

2009-06-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

Bopha here is the beginning of your baby blanket. I hope you like it:

I have a book with this pattern for a pillow that i really like (pictured below) and thought that it would be easy to turn into a baby blanket by making four "big" sqaures and grafting them together to be a baby blanket.

After much turmoil over deciding the colors to pick out, Shay and I decided on these for you.

I have almost finished one sqaure of the blanket and here is what it looks like as of now:

I had a minor set back that I correcteed so it shouldnt take me this long/square from now on out. I am trying to get it finished by my moms bday so Shay can take it back for you. I hope that you love it in the end and if you dont, just tell me and I will make another one for you. Have a good day and congratulations on new baby Madden!

Would you rather be a pregnant Children' Minister during the >100 degree temps of the summer...

2009-06-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

...or would you rather have to drink your water like a cat?

Well if your name is Katie Isenberg, you would LOVE to do both!!!

A few weeks ago, some friends came over after church to play a rousing game of Skip Bo and Would You Rather?. If you have never played the latter, you should sometime. It is a really fun game for a big group of people (see blog post from our first introduction to this game last christmas here), but as we found out this night, it is kind of lame with just a few. But at least we got to see Katie act like a cat. And you can to by clicking on this video:

I only had to hold a spoon in my mouth for two turns, it wasnt as exciting as Katie!