24, 25 or 26?

I turned 26 last week. According to older brother Chris, that means I'm only 14 years away from 40! Woohoo!

I'm in trouble though because a few weeks before my birthday I couldn't remember if I was 24 and turning 25 or if I was 25 and turning 26. After a little math, I concluded I was, indeed, 25 turning 26. Thank goodness for math and awesome husbands. Math to help me figure out how old I am and a great husband to help make it such a wonderful day!

Kody knows the way to his wife's heart:



A new kitchen toy...Vanilla Coke...chocolate in the bag...funny and thoughtful card

It was a great day filled with sleeping in, a long run with Noodles on a gorgeous autumn day, lunch at Olive Garden with Kody, relaxing afternoon, dinner out with Kody and games at home to finish out the day.

But come Sunday, while Kody studied all day, I got my baking on and tried out my new KitchenAid. I made about a million muffins for us to take for breakfast/lunch each day, including a gigantic batch of my mom's refrigerator bran muffins (with chocolate chips) and a small batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I also got to use it to make mashed potatoes and I plan on putting it to use soon to make some pumpkin scones! Yum! I'm in love. Funny how happy kitchen toys can make you.

I also was hoping to take some family photos last weekend, but Kody bailed on me. I decided to see about take a few of Noodles by myself in the backyard. You can see the progression below. I let the photos speak for themselves.

Photo shoot = unsuccessful.

I'm frustrated even looking at these pictures again. ha! And no, we haven't raked our leaves yet. Kody tells me if we leave them that it'll fertilize the yard and I believe him.

Kitchen eatin'

While our Walmart folding kitchen table worked incredibly well for us for our first three years of marriage, one of the things we couldn't wait to upgrade was the folding table to a "real" kitchen table. Real = ability to seat more than four people, ability to have food and plates on the table at the same time and an inability to accidentally fold up on you.


Our new table definitely fits all those desires (although I often forget that there's room on the table for the food and find myself setting up a buffet on the counter!). It still does fold, but in a good way - folds out to seat even more people! One problem though...we're still so enamored with our couch that the table definitely doesn't get as much use as it should! Many meals are eaten on the couch. But not when we have company (hint, hint: come visit).

I haven't put up too many kitchen pictures here because we haven't made many changes to it, but I realized it does look a lot different with the new table. So here are a few pics of the kitchen...brand new table and all! The only thing you can't see if our bookshelf that you get a peek of on the right side of the first photo. You'll just have to come visit if you want to see that (re: I'm bored because Kody is always studying and if there's anything I can do to entice you to come visit us, I'm up for it! I realize a bookshelf probably won't do that, but I promise to cook for you in this kitchen if you drop by!).

Pumpkin Destruction

After church last week, Kody and I decided to stop and grab some pumpkins at the grocery store. We set them on our front porch and planned to carve or do something with them later in the week.

Last Monday morning, we came outside to this:

And Monday afternoon, I came home for lunch to three squirrels on our porch ... enjoying a nice pumpkin snack.

They're still sitting there by our front door. I suppose we should just throw them out, now that they're uncarvable, but I think I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that squirrels ate and proceeded to destroy our pumpkins. Less than 24 hours after we bought them!!

Apparently they're hungry little boogers.

a little fun before real school

Kody started classes this past Monday and it's goodbye life, hello textbooks.

But during the past eight weeks of "rotation vacation," as the vets call it, we've managed to squeeze in a few fun activities.

Waaay back, like when it was over 90 degrees, we sweat through an Illinois v. Arkansas State football game with some vet school couples. Unfortunately, there's no photo evidence of the fun we had cheering for the Illini, squinting our eyes and devouring s'mores in our backyard.

But there is evidence of the getaway camping trip with our favorite youth pastor and his wife a few weeks back - the Benders.

Austin and Amber are expert campers and we couldn't believe that this was our first time camping with them. We enjoyed chilly weather, food cooked over the fire, hot chocolate, great friends and a few other not so great things - loud neighbors late into the night, a dog pacing the tent until 2:30 a.m. and a gorgeous day of hiking that meant lots and lots of crowds.

Then last weekend our friends from St. Charles (okay, really DeKalb) - Brett, Kim and Halle Lu Mapel - joined us for another fun Illini football game against Ohio State. Not a great game, but definitely great company and a fun way to spend Kody's last weekend of freedom.

Kody gets another "rotation vacation" in about a year, so hopefully it'll be filled with as much fun, friends and memories. Until then, you can find Kody in the study with his nose in his computer and me in the kitchen using my new KitchenAid mixer!!!!