Weird or Normal?

Lately I have really been wondering if something is weird or normal that Cody and I have started doing since getting Callie... -I will say Cody started it, and I initially thought it was weird, but then it just seemed to work, so I started doing it too.  So, if anyone out there has an opinion on this they'd like to share... I'm really curious!  So here goes.

Obviously Callie is a dog, not a child -but we've started referring to ourselves as parents with her.  For example... I'll be laying on the couch, minding my own business, when WHOMP -Callie jumps onto my face and smashes my stomach.  Cody promptly yells, "CALLIE, get off Mama!"

Example 2:  I'll be trying to clean up, carrying our dishes from dinner over to the kitchen, Callie will start running into me, tripping me up, and jumping, and I yell, "CALLIE, go bother Daddy!"

So that's basically what I mean.  When talking to Callie, we call each other Mama and Daddy... weird or normal for having a dog???  I really wanna know, cause I thought it was weird at first and now it's gotten normal.

*Note:  We are not at the moment, nor planning on becoming anytime soon, pregnant... the mama and daddy references (as described above) are strictly referring to Callie. 


Also here's just a couple fun pics I like of Callie... today I caught her playing with my yarn... and then I gave her a big bone for the first time.  I thought she looked cute.  And I will admit, at first when I caught her with my yarn, I yelled, got upset, and removed the yearn.  THEN, I thought -nuts, that would have been a cute picture!  So I definitely threw the yarn back all around her and took these pics.  Then picked up the yarn again.  Just sharing.

 

 

Prayer & Praise

On a totally separate and serious note I have two things to share.  This past Tuesday night my Uncle Neal passed away unexpectedly.  He was one of 7 siblings on my dad's side.  Please pray for his family -his wife, and his daughter with her husband and baby girl, all of his siblings, and any other affected family and friends.  

Separately, my cousin Makia and his wife Jenny just had a beautiful little girl, Olivia! This happened on Tuesday night as well.  So please be praying for them, and for Jenny adjusting to life with a new little baby!  Congrats to Makia and Jenny!

Weak-Sauce

I don't know what I have, but I officially hate it.  It may just be some weird version of a cold, but I've had this solidly since Thursday. I subbed a half day Wednesday and had a sore throat, came home and it got worse.  I started feeling fairly bad Wednesday night and woke up Thursday miserable.  So it's now been 5 solid days of sickness and I'm ready to be better!  I'm just venting.  It's my blog; I'm allowed to right?  I'm sick, bored, and waiting on my sweet husband to bring us home dinner.  So I'm venting about being sick on my blog.  And Callie has been a PAIN while I've been sick!  I know... it's not totally her fault.  I haven't taken her out for long walks like normal because after about 5 minutes of her pulling me around outside, I start to feel light-headed, and am more than ready to come back and lay down inside. I know... both Cody and my brothers constantly remind me of how wimpy I am.  I think both Sean and Aaron's favorite thing to say to me (as they hand me some random something... sauce, drink, etc.) is:  "Hey Sammie, want a little more weak-sauce?"  And then they crack up and I argue that despite what they think I am not the biggest baby in the world.

Anyways.  Just complaining because I can!  Sorry for the super boring lame post.  Hoping to wake up tomorrow feeling all fresh and brand new!

Non-Birthday Weekend

Me with my friend and co-leader, Angela!

This past weekend was buuusy!  -But good.  Cody and I helped out with Revolution Weekend (like Disciple Now) at Parkhills.  I co-lead the 9th grade girls with a good friend from our weekly small group and Cody was a co-host for the 11th and 12th grade boys.  It was a jam-packed weekend but definitely worth it!  We went through 4 study sessions on the topic of Christ-like Community, the students built/decorated Derby cars for the major race Saturday afternoon, and we had a rally (guest speaker and worship band) Saturday evening.  Everything went great and I think the students enjoyed it --and hopefully left having learned something and being motivated to move forward in their relationships with Christ.

Our girls decorating their journals for the weekend.

My loves giving me my birthday card before the Derby race started.

Cody's 11th and 12th grade guys in the race.

Our girls all in costume and with accessories --aka home-made spears, swords, and I believe we also had an ax-- (It was a Spartan theme) for the race.

Our girls in the race.

Set up for the Rally Saturday night in the Parkhills sanctuary.

It was also my birthday on Saturday.  Cody has made it clear -as I did to him when he turned this age- that I am now officially in my mid-twenties (I turned 24).  Weird!  Lol.  Not really, but a little.  Anyways.  Cody did manage to give me his sweet card during the business Saturday with Revolution Weekend but otherwise we have postponed birthday-ness until this coming weekend.  Which was just fine with me.  By the time we got home from RW Sunday afternoon we were both exhausted!  My friend who was my co-leader, our additional leader, and our 9th grade girls did surprise me late Saturday night with a delicious German Chocolate Cake and 24 glowing candles!  It was super sweet -and I honestly was not in the least expecting it... at least not until they called me downstairs and I walked into a dimly lit room filled with people... then I sorta guessed what was going on lol.  Thank y'all for that sweet gesture!  I really appreciated it : )

Hair before...

Also... this is on a more random note, I had been wanting to cut my hair for a while now and decided to wait until after my sister-in-law's wedding.  Then I decided I wanted to do it around my birthday.  (Note:  I had been saving a Groupon for a hair cut and massage for moooonths to wait and use for just this occasion.)  So I made an appointment and went in Friday morning before RW stuff started.  I cut off about 11 inches!  Big hair cut.  I have never had it THIS short.  I have cut it fairly short twice before... but this is the shortest, and at least so far I really love it!  I have told Cody that I hope he means it that he likes it... cause I may be keeping this hair style for a while.  The one thing I'm still nervous about is that I haven't tried it curly yet!!!  -Which could still be disastrous; we'll have to wait and see. My hair is naturally curly... but probably at least half the time I straighten it.  This short it could possibly be awful curly... hopefully it's at least okay so I don't always have to straighten it now.  I haven't mailed it in yet, but I'm planning on sending in my hair to Locks of Love.  And if I'm being honest... I did not cut my hair for that purpose.  BUT when I realized it was reallly long and I wanted to go short, I looked into it and found out my hair would be long enough to donate, and so I decided that's what I would do.  Anyways.  Enough rambling about my hair.

Adjusting to missing a lot of hair!

11 inches off... a little more when you pull it all the way out.

... And after.

Also a little off of everything from above -Cody's grandma turned 85 last week and we all enjoyed dinner out to Olive Garden for the occasion.  It was a nice dinner out and of course a birthday dinner wouldn't be complete without singing and cake.

Happy 85th birthday, Grandma!

On our way to Grandma's birthday dinner.

So that's our latest update!  Hope everyone is having a great week!

Since when did our home turn into a destruction zone?!

Seriously.  I sort of need to vent a little.  As y'all know we got Callie the middle of December and have now had her 5 weeks.  And we still love her and she is super cute and adorable! -MOST of the time lol. I'm posting a lot of pictures with this... not all of them relate at all to what I'll be venting about! I just wanted to share some cute pics of her so you know we still love her in spite of everything!

We do still love her!  She's adorable. I like this photo of Cody with Callie from Christmas.

The first week she was calm and gentle and mellow... it was great!  The second through third week she realllly started to adjust and become herself.  And it turns out that 'herself' is very different than how she was the first week.  And that's okay, just she has turned out to be QUITE the handful.  Let me tell you...  I was telling my mom on the phone today, I now often feel frustrated and stressed with her/because of her, and it takes 3-4 times longer to do almost anything that it did before.  She isn't a huge dog, but she definitely isn't a tiny dog either, yet she thinks it's perfectly fine to crawl (or jump) up into our laps when we're at the computer. And well, here are all the reasons it is NOT FINE with me:  1)  it HURTS my legs! -Especially my still sore and bruised area. It really hurts. 2) I can't reach the mouse or keyboard. 3) I can't see the computer screen.  So basically whatever I was doing on the computer, I can no longer do.  And she doesn't even just sit or lay in my lap... she tries to climb onto the computer desk or the end table we have by the futon.  I think you get the idea.  Cody thinks it is super cute how she does it though, and it is while she's crawling up... but once she gets up, it's no longer cute. It hurts!  But so she will come up to you on the computer chair, first put her cute face in your lap, then nudge you, and then proceed to slowly inch by inch crawl her body up on top of your lap. I guess I'll say that whenever it's Cody at the computer and she slow crawls into his lap, it is cute and also funny. When it's me... not so much lol.

Out and about on a walk through our apartment complex.

Also, whenever I need to shower, she isn't trustworthy enough yet to let her run around the apartment, so I have to lock her in the bathroom with me.  Well, at first this was no big deal at all.  However, it did not take long for her to figure out how to push the shower curtain back... and well that creates a huge mess as water sprays out and she often tries to jump in.  So now as I shower, I have to watch her constantly and whenever she makes a move toward either end of the shower curtain, I have to step on it and pull it tight so she can't move it, and then wait for her to give up and lay back down so I can finish in the shower.  It makes me feel like I am trying to juggle or something when all I needed to do was wash my hair.

She looooves the tennis balls!

And of course we still have the potty issue.  Fortunately she has gotten much better in some aspects of it.  She now consistently goes when we take her outside (yay!) and she has not gone inside lately when we're home at all.  The problem comes when we're not home. It doesn't matter whether we're gone for 30 minutes or 4 hours... even for just fairly quick trips out, she goes to the bathroom inside while we're gone.  We think it's from separation anxiety and that stress, but we don't really know what to do about it!  Any tips anyone??  We did buy the potty pad things... and now leave those out with her whenever we leave.  She uses them ... about 60% of the time.  So I guess that's better than never.  Actually, normally she somehow half uses them... so we have a partial mess on the very-convenient-and-easy-to-clean-up pads, and still half the mess on the carpet.  Again, any tips anyone??? Please do share!

At the dog park!  She loves to run around and play with all the other dogs!

And yes if you didn't notice... one of the first times we took her it was already almost 6 and therefore quickly got dark and we were soon by ourselves.  We still had fun.

Lastly I'll talk about the general destruction zone that has overtake our apartment.  Somehow slowly things have gotten out of hand in the general tidiness of our home since we've gotten Callie.  Of course there are the little things to be expected... her hair having shed everywhere, her toys now always spread out on the floor... what we weren't expecting as much as just how everything now is always disheveled.  For starters Callie LOVES and has practically claimed the living room papasan chair.  She loves to jump up and sit in it with a toy, loves to jump in and out of it when she's super energetic (which is almost always), and well, it's a papasan... not super steady.  So it is never upright and how it should be any longer. It is constantly toppled over and covering the entire living room area and often blocking the area where we would walk into the kitchen.  You would think... it's like a 3 piece set... so pick it up, no problem. You're right... we can easily put it back together and back in place -except then she immediately (and I mean IMMEDIATELY) jumps back into it, knocking it over AGAIN. We have left it to it's new home toppled over on the floor for the last week.  But that added to knocked over bar stools (knocked over from the papasan hitting it), her toys and balls, random food pieces, the pillows knocked to the floor, blanket pushed off the couch... well it's hit a point where I wish we could get our apartment back! -And have it back for more than... 5 minutes, if we're lucky.

She is cute and can be super sweet. I do still love her in spite of how she is now such a handful!

Anyways.  Enough venting.  I'm done for now at least.  Don't get me wrong, we do love her to death and she is super cute and adorable.  She is very loyal and sweet (when she wants to be lol).  She's ours now and there is nothing else to it... I guess I just need to adjust to a disheveled home!

Wedding Pics

Pictures! 

So I know it wasn't our wedding, but I still wanted to share several pictures from the weekend.  Congrats again to my beautiful sister-in-law, Kari, and her new husband, John!

Rehearsal Evening -Also New Year's Eve

Brother-Sister pic

Happy New Year!  We went down to the hotel lobby to celebrate.

1.1.11 -John & Kari's Wedding Day

Mr. & Mrs. Adams!

 

Their reception was at the Pearl Stable and it was gorgeous!

My family at the wedding.

First Dance

Cutting the cake.

They left in a horse-drawn carriage! It was really sweet.

 Post Wedding

Cody and I picked up pizza before heading over to his parents' house to hang out with out-of-town family.

Waiting around at Pizza Hut for our order to be ready.  It was actually a really nice time together to just recap the day.

 

On a random note... I was amazed my hair held up for about 15 hours throughout the day!  Actually... upon going home that night and taking out the numerous bobby pins, my hair almost held the exact same shape due to the extreme amount of hair spray from that morning! In a weird way it really was amazing. I never before knew the power of hair spray.

Crazy Busy!

Hello all! It's been too long. I like my blog and I wish I'd had time to post sooner than now! So we've had a lot going on the last few weeks. Lots to catch up on! I'll try to keep it all semi-brief… although I tend to ramble so we’ll just see. Here we go!

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas with both of our families! Cody and I decided to exchange our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve, that way when we got up on Christmas we could just get ready to go without feeling pressed for time. We decided to take Callie with us all day so that she wouldn't be stuck alone literally all day as we knew we wouldn't get home again until late. We went over to my parents for the morning and first portion of the day and had a wonderful Christmas morning and lunch with them! Unfortunately, Callie did NOT get along well with my family's two dogs -Smokey and Lucky. (Although I blame those two rather than Callie... she just wanted to play!) Smokey was scared to death of her and Lucky never stopped barking and growling. So poor Callie... we brought her with us so she wouldn't be left alone, but she definitely got locked up in the laundry room the whole time we were there just to keep all the dogs apart. Oh well. I think everyone's recovered from that by now! After lunch we headed over to the Hendersons for the rest of the day. We went through opening our stockings, presents, and then enjoyed dinner together. At that house there were three dogs as well. Sue and Steve have Maddie (a Dachshund like Smokey) and then also we had Cody's aunt and uncle's dog, D-O-G. Maddie was just as terrified of Callie as Smokey was. She would freeze up and not move a muscle as Callie tried to get her to play, then would run off relieved when Callie would finally walk away. D-O-G and Callie had a good time together though! They played and wrestled... well almost literally the entire time we were there. I don't know if Callie is capable of getting worn out! So that was our Christmas! We enjoyed the day with both our families and Callie met our other family dogs... hopefully after another meeting or so they will all get along much better.

(*Note: Part of why it's taken me this long to post recently is that I wanted to include some photos from Christmas, but I can't find my old camera to upload the pictures! It's driving me nuts and I'm officially annoyed that I've seemingly lost it in our apartment lol.  Anyways, so I finally decided to post without the pictures.)

Wedding Stuff (& New Year's as they overlapped!)

I feel like the whole second week of the break was wedding stuff! And while it was all fun and we enjoyed it, I felt like Cody and I hardly had any time together before school started up again. It was all great though and I guess that just seems to be how the week before a wedding goes. That Wednesday I helped throw a lingerie shower for Kari which was followed that evening by her bachelorette party. We went down to the River Walk and enjoyed a girls night out.

I had so much fun helping host Kari's shower!

Girls night out for Kari's Bachelorette party!

We enjoyed dinner and dancing down on the River Walk!

Thursday there was a dinner for Out-of-Town guests and family and immediately following that Cody and the guys left for John's bachelor party- they went down to the River Walk as well. Then it was Friday, with the typical rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Some of the guys stayed at our apartment that night and us girls stayed at a hotel. It was hard to even remember it was also New Year's Eve in the midst of all the wedding stuff!

Kari and John at their Out-of-Town Guest Dinner

Then it was finally Kari and John's wedding day and everything was gorgeous! Kari was a beautiful glowing bride and I think it turned out to be the dream wedding day she had wanted. They are currently out on their honeymoon cruise! Cody keeps saying he's jealous... wishing we could go on a vacation again just the two of us. (We haven't done a trip just us since our honeymoon --although we did go to a hotel for a night on our anniversary last year.) Anyways! Congrats to John and Kari! -The new Mr. and Mrs. Adams!

New Dessert Discovery... Yumm!

I recently found a dessert cookbook I got from my Mom around the time we got married.  I LOVE finding random new desserts to try.  I reallllly wish Cody and more of our family enjoyed more 'fancy' desserts so that I could try those types out as well!  But sadly hardly any of them do.  (Cody definitely does not.  He's a cookies and brownies kinda guy... and often makes comments about the different desserts I experiment with.)  I am glad that this year I have now found recipes I (and we all) like for Apple Crumble and Apple Pie (... although I did not make the crust from scratch this first time... I do hope to in the future!).  So, back to my main point.  On Sunday I found this old dessert cookbook (Hershey's Classic Recipes) and flipped through it.  I was pressed for time before our family came over so I found something that looked good and was super quick and easy.  I ended up making Hot Fudge Pudding Cake and it turned out really well!  We ate it cold with whipped cream.  Cody felt like it would have been great with ice cream... and I felt like it would have possibly been better warmed up.  We did try it warm the next night... and I was torn, it was really good both ways!  I do think I slightly overcooked it... it could have been a little more moist and mushy as it's suppose to be kinda pudding-like.

I forgot to take a picture BEFORE we started eating it all!

Anyways, I just wanted to share as I'm always excited to try a dessert that people end up enjoying!  I found the recipe in the Hershey's Classic Recipes cookbook, BUT I saw that it is also available online in anyone is interested in trying it out:

http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/4761/Hot%20Fudge%20Pudding%20Cake.aspx