battle of wills

a recent study in child development showed that 2- and 3- year-olds argue with their parents 20 to 25 times an hour!

that leaves this momma feeling exhausted.

refugees again

yes, 51 would be the current indoor temperature of our house. once again, broken furnace. what is going on?? so we've taken refuge again at my parents house. where it's warm. and i can rest; because on top of having a broken furnace, i'm sick. thanks to my lovely boys for passing it on to mommy.

happy birthday gingy-bean

today my favorite baby seester turns 24.

happy birthday lyndsay lorraine!!

i'm sad not to be with you on your birthday. but i know andy will do a superb job making your day extra special. and you can be looking forward to getting some special birthday cookies in the mail that lincoln & i made for you!! (we'll save the presents for when you come home in march & we'll have a party then!). you are an amazing woman lyx! so kindhearted, thoughtful, funny, spunky, and faithful! i love hanging out with you. one of my favorite memories with you is when we used to go running together every night. braving the cold. trying to be really stupid when cars drove by. and sharing stories about our crushes - that we both ended up marrying...crazy! i hope you have a quackstastic day!

i'm so blessed that my two bestest friends in the whole world are my sisters!
-xoxo-


(tee hee...at the beginning he almost fell off the bed! isn't he the greatest?!)

holy cats!

(that's an expression my 2nd father-in-law uses and i think it's great!)

so the counter on my blog said that i got 64 hits the other day. that's laughable for some, but for my little ole blog, that's huge. and they were from all over the world. why the sudden increase? does blogger randomly promote blogs? will anyone even answers these questions?

also, i miss my best friend. she is in a far-away land and i'm ready for her to be home already! and so much is happening on the bachelor (which she got me addicted to, well, and the fact that a girl from our hometown was on it) and i really, really want to talk to someone about it. and the bachelor was in new zealand too!! did ya see him, mar??

come home now!!

teaser

outside my door right now

happy day of love

reasons i like valentine's day:

• i like hearts
• i like red
• i like love
• i like getting presents
• i like loving on my family

i made heart shaped pancakes for breakfast

linc & i made our own valentines
(he finger painted the front of the cards)

yummy homemade valentine cookies

mike and i spent the afternoon touring the george eastman house and having lunch (thanks to randy, annette & the girls for watching the boys!). and then after church (and the boys were in bed) we watched a movie and had my favorite - sparkling grape juice! and now we're off to aunt jan's annual valentine party (after i frost some more cookies)!

a grimm weekend

last weekend, mike & i went down to visit andy & lyndsay. we had lots and lots and lots of fun (was there an extra lots thrown in there because it was also a kid-less weekend? possibly.). we'll give a little shout-out to the grandparents for covering the weekend for us so we could enjoy jaunting around beaver falls/pittsburgh without little tots in tow.

mom & dad were there the first night because dad had a meeting in pittsburgh on saturday morning (and mike's mom watched the boys the first night so my mom could come down with dad!)

we went to a primanti brothers restaurant on friday night to try the "pitts-burger" (a burger with coleslaw & fries on it). pretty good actually. lyx ordered a pickle and mom snatched some before we could even snap a picture.

doing our favorite family event, playing games and drinking coffee. obviously andy did not like lyndsay's suggestion of playing life on the farm.

i'm not really sure why we're doing this...something mom said about trying to be cool like the japanese do in their pictures??

saturday morning we enjoyed some yummy, yummy waffles inc.

mom and i shared the "breakfast waffle"
(bacon, cheese, green onion & an egg with sour cream topping)

mike's "french toast" waffle

my only request for the weekend was to make a trip to don pablo's since we no longer have any in new york state

the reason i miss dp's: the queso

andy's obviously super excited about the queso too

we drove into pittsburgh (only taking ten a few wrong turns) to see the city lights
(i know mike has much better pictures of the lights that he took with his fancy-shmancy camera, but i don't feel like getting on his computer and looking for them, so settle for this)

i'm not sure why i'm posting this picture because i don't like it very much

we went to the northeast barista competition in cranberry, pa. it wasn't the excitement that we'd thought it'd be and i was very dissapointed in the lack of free samples.

we also did some other exciting things (like going to ikea, again! andy & mike can never get enough ikea. and eating oram's donuts, yum!). thanks for the super fun weekend, grimm-ies!! you were great hosts. next time we'll do another trip with the boys (and get no sleep!).

good 'ole chuck

we had a mini going away party before marla & justin left for new zealand. we had all ordered subs from bella's, but justin ordered wings from main street pizza. my dad went to pick them up for justin and waited, and waited and waited. finally he was told that there wasn't any orders at all for a "justin", but there was a single order of bbq wings for a "chuck". yea...so somehow justin and chuck sound similar?? so now justin is chuck. haa...love it!


have fun in new zealand marla & chuck!!

super fun

...especially for lyx. (we missed you!)

every year i host a superbowl party...and not because i like football...honestly, i could care less about football. it's for the food (isn't everything always about the food?). the pierce girls decided we needed a party to have all our favorites at - just appetizers and desserts. and so every superbowl sunday we loosen our belts and participate in a little gluttony!!

our menu this year included:

• cocktail meatballs
• buffalo chicken dip
• cool veggie pizza
• artichoke dip
• veggies w/ dill dip
• piggies in a bang-bang (or pigs in a blanket if you aren't lincoln)
• sweet potato muffins (and typing that up made me want one)
• raspberry icecream cheesecake
• haystacks
• rice krispie treats
• pineapple sherbet pie
• ginger beer (for mom & aunt jan)
  

i guess i should also mention that this was just for 8 adults (super small party this year)....although alex & kila did stop by briefly. yikes...lotta food for 8 peeps.

our super snowman
(he's holding a football, not a snowball, don't be confused like i was)

choose your team

the boys room
(click on the picture: linc looks like he's a little concerned for his team)

the sweet, sweet mully
(yup, sporting a bills outfit...one can hope)

watching the game...look how into mar & aj were

exercise

lincoln is up in bed, supposed to be napping, but instead shouting things over the monitor; like, "mom, i'm ready to come downstairs now and exercise!".

he must have known cai was downstairs checking out this book:


sidenote:: when linc first learned the word exercise, he called it "sexercise". let's just say i'm glad he learned the correct pronunciation very quickly.