My little helper

Tyson LOVES routine... he's just like his mommy :)

Okay so here is the background... I always place things at the bottom of the stairs during the day that need to go to our room. We carry them up at night when it's time for bed. I started getting Tyson to carry something up every night... and he LOVES it. His tail wags so hard once he makes it upstairs-- so happy to have helped me. (Not to mention I act SO excited and praise him a lot once he makes it up there!)
One night I gave him my iphone, and he carried it gently in his mouth all the way upstairs. It seems to have stuck as he won't take ANYTHING else but my cell phone now. If I forget and start walking up before him, he runs a couple steps in front of me then blocks me from going up any further until I give him it. Absolutely hilarious, but the dog whisperer is right... DOGS LOVE HAVING JOBS!!!
(As you'll notice in the background of this picture is our lovely Elle proof landing. She actually hasn't peed AT ALL the past week and a half, and the only change is that Kyle is gone :( So I guess we know the problem haha. She's a girls girl!)

Indian Princess Memories

The past couple weekends I've been up in NC helping my parents get their house ready to sell.
While we were going through old boxes I found...

OUR INDIAN PRINCESSES VESTS & NECKLACES!!!
My dad and I did this group when I was around 9 or 10... which let me just say is A LOT cooler than Girl Scouts! We would meet with other father-daughter couples and do crafts and go on trips.... it was really fun!At one of the meetings, we all had to pick each others names for the tribe. All the girls were picking out "soaring eagle" and "rolling thunder" names for their dads. Well, I took one look at dad and named him "Honey Bear". Does that not fit him perfectly?! haha He named me "running fawn".
I couldn't believe our vests still "fit". Although mine was pretty snug, and didn't even reach my stomach!
Guess I've grown a little since then!
I must have forgotten this, but our tribe name was "Hekowi".
Dad said him and all the other dads came up with it as in "Where the Heck-our-we?". hahaha
Really fun memories. Thanks dad for humoring me and putting this on!! Love you so much :)

Top 3 Thursday: Places We've Been Together

Kyle and I been so blessed to travel together to such fun places!

It's hard to narrow it down to just 3!!

1) PUERTO VALLARTA (december 2006). I think our favorite vacation so far together was our honeymoon. Not only was it amazing because we were finally married, but we were just treated like royalty the entire time. We got upgraded to a boutique hotel that was adults only, and our room had our own pool on our deck. We were literally the only ones at the resort and the food was SO GOOD. By far the laziest, most relaxing vacation we've ever been on!
We got a couples massage on the beach, went downtown and ate at Kyle's cousins restaurant, snorkled everywhere, kayaked, saw about 5 whales, went on a dune buggy ride, laid out by the pool almost every day, ate lots of food at the restaurants and room service, and so much more! What a perfect honeymoon!

2) WYOMING (august 2009). We just took this trip in August of last year, and just had the best time. It was not only awesome because we got to be outdoorsy and relax in nature, but it was amazing for our marriage. Kyle has always said to me he would do anything to protect and keep me safe... and this trip he proved exactly that. This vacation will always be close to my heart because of the experiences we faced and conquered together.

Our favorite day was "our private island". It. Was. Heaven.

Now this vacation I actually blogged about! To read about all of our days click the links below:
First Night, Day 1 , Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8

3) GERMANY (july 2004). My parents gave me their frequent flier miles as my 21st birthday present so I could fly over to Germany and visit Kyle. He was doing a summer internship over there and I couldn't WAIT to see him. We had the best time walking around Germany and Austria. It's amazing over there. I just remember us laughing a lot and being so giddy to be around each other again.
We took the Sound of Music tour which was really fun too! I think the funniest thing that happened on this trip was ordering 2 slices of pizza and getting 2 pizza's in return. Kyle needed to brush up on his German!!

And those are our top 3! An honorable mention goes to Hawaii and Cabo San Lucas without a doubt! I just don't have those pictures on my computer, so I can't share those yet! What would your top 3 places be??

Wordless Wednesday: The animals have been filling up Kyle's space in the bed NO PROBLEM!

Hot Corn Dip

A couple weeks ago when I attended the Oscar Party (as I posted about here) I wanted to bring an appetizer that wasn't ALL about cheese. {I have a tendency to always lean towards cheese because it could possibly be my all time favorite food.} ANYWAYS, trying to be a little healthier I found a corn dip recipe that looked delicious... from you guessed it... Our Best Bites!
Hot Corn Dip

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 1/2 cups corn kernels (from 4 ears fresh white or yellow corn, or frozen fresh corn)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup finely chopped yellow onions
• 1/2 cup finely chopped red bell peppers
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions (green and white parts)
• 1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/2 to 1 cup mayonnaise
• 4 ounces Monterrey jack or cheddar, shredded\
• 4 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• Tortilla chips, for dipping

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the corn, salt, and black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the kernels turn deep golden brown, about 5 minutes. Note that if you're using frozen corn it probably won't get golden brown. Just cook for about 5 minutes as the recipe states. Transfer to a bowl.

Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in the skillet. Add the onions and bell peppers and cook, stirring often, until the onions are wilted, about 2 minutes. Add the green onions, jalapeno, and garlic and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes, or until the vegetables are softened. Transfer to the bowl with the corn.

Add 1/2 C mayo, cayenne pepper, half of the Monterrey jack and half of the cheddar and mix well. If you need more mayo to hold the mixture together then add it, but I found that 1/2 C was plenty, and I even added a little extra cheese.

Pour into an 8-inch square baking dish, or something equivalent and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Bake until bubbly and golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve hot with tortilla chips or Fritos.

It was very good, and it still included cheese which made me happy :)

Sweet sweet man

Kyle and I haven't spent that much time together lately since he's been traveling to Miami, Memphis, LA, and now CHINA for work!
He sent me these last week when I was having a pretty rough day, and they just meant the world.
They were too pretty not to share...Thank you Ky, I just love them!

John Mayer Concert with Lacey!

On Wednesday (St. Patty's day), Lacey and I got the chance to go see John Mayer at Phillip's Arena here in Atlanta. We had just decided the week before to buy tickets, and we are just so glad we did it!
Lacey lives real close to a MARTA station, so after dinner at Mellow Mushroom we hopped on the train and headed into the city. (Kyle only let us do this because it was daytime and he was picking us up from the concert that night... MARTA is just a little scary) Lacey was very confident that we would face no problems and everybody would mind their own business. BUT what she forgot about was that things never go that way when I'm with her. Strangers ALWAYS come up and talk to me, and weird things always happen. That's just the way it is.

So our first scary moment was when the train just stopped mid track for about 5 minutes. I thought for sure it was getting hijacked and said a little prayer in my head. I've just seen way too many movies where that happens!! (Of course it didn't get hijacked, it probably was just waiting for another train to leave the station or something) The second thing was as soon as the train stopped the man right in front of us (who had been bopping his head to his music the whole time) got up and started to rap for all of us. "Sixteen inch rimmzzz". Now this type of thing has been known to happen on MARTA. (Click HERE if you want to see, but let me warn you there is terrible language on this clip. It was all over the news, this happened on MARTA about a year ago and people on the train started videotaping her. Her family said that she didn't take her bipolar medicine that day. That poor old lady, I have no clue why she was getting yelled at.) Anyways luckily he just paced around in front of us but never got in our faces... just more or less putting on a show for the whole train.

Okay so we finally made it to the concert and walked in to find our seats. We were row "T" right smack dab in the center. We were excited because "T" isn't "Z" which means we weren't the farthest back row... UMM WRONG. Apparently people in ATL don't know the alphabet. We were the farthest back row in the center, and could not stop laughing. Lacey sat right by the fold out chairs for handicapped people. Oh my gosh it was hilarious. That's right do you see the spotlight guys right next to us?!?!
Our view wasn't the best either because of the air conditioning vents. BUT we were right in the middle, and had room to dance if we wanted to :)
So on came the opener...Michael Franti & Spearhead. FYI they are one band, and they were so fun! Lacey and I had never heard of them before, but one of their songs is pretty popular and as soon as we heard it we recognized it. Click HERE to listen. Anyways they are reggae and it was just feel good music, so we loved it. At least Lacey's little camera can zoom in and get some great shots!

Then we patiently waited for John to come on and took more pictures!

And then came John! He was absolutely awesome, like he always is. He's so talented, and really puts on such a great show. He sang a ton of music off his new album, but then threw in some oldies occasionally. He lived in Atlanta for a while when he started singing so he played a lot of the songs he wrote here.

The screen right behind him was perfect, we could see everything so clearly. Just love his music!Michael Franti came out and sang with John later on in the concert. He has LONG dreads!

John ended the concert with "Why Georgia Why" which was perfect!

What a fun girls night for Lacey and I! Kyle loves John Mayer too, but he had a hockey game unfortunately! Kyle picked us up from the concert and we returned home safe and sound :) Thanks again Lacey I had a BLAST!

Wordless Wednesday: Happy St. Patty's Day!

Making more prayer blankets!

As I had posted here, we had started making blankets for the men who will be staying in our room that we adopted in the Atlanta Union Mission. We had four more to make, so we quickly got together two Sundays ago to finish them up!

Here we are modeling them... the over the shoulder look you know:

Our next step is to paint the room, make curtains for the windows and then put artwork up on the walls. It's coming together! Oh and I have to leave you with my favorite photo of the day... haha just makes me laugh. MODEL it Stephanie!!

Kyle's California Trip!

Kyle spent the last week in Los Angeles, California attending a Home Depot store managers meeting. It was a lot of work on his end, setting up displays and presenting to all the store managers about their products, but he said overall it went well. He flew there on a Thursday, so by the time the weekend came around he was able to go to the beach and see some family. His 97 year old grandpa "Pop" is living out there with Aunt Barbara (Mr. G's sister), so Kyle made a special 6 hour drive up to San Jose to see him. {We seriously should be truckers, by the amount of miles we cover on weekends!}
Kyle was able to spend about 5 hours with Pop. They had breakfast, played Nintendo Wii and looked through old photo albums that went all the way back to Pop's grandparents. He had a wonderful time catching up with him again, definitely worth the drive!
Also, one night after the show Kyle and his boss, Tim, went to a Lakers game where they got to see Kobe Bryant win the game with a last second jump shot, as he has done so many times. He said confetti flew down and the crowd went crazy.
Overall it was a good trip, but he was happy to come home. He has been traveling so much lately, and we'll be happy in April when his work schedule calms down a bit. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to tag along with him on these fantastic work trips!

Meeting the Sams!

This past weekend Kyle and I were finally able to visit Raleigh and meet the Sams! (Tara & Jamie's new babies!). We had a wonderful weekend with our family, and Samuel & Samantha are just beautiful. They are so little when you see them in person though!!

Natalie & Nathan just LOVE the new twins! (And so do we!)

It was also a huge work weekend for all of us at my parents house. (hence why Kyle and I look so lovely in all the pictures above). We were able to do some packing, painting, pressure washing, taking a trip to the dump, and making lots of lists to help get my parents house ready to sell. Please continue to keep my dad in your prayers as the pain in his back has come back and they are considering having him do another round of radiation.

Oscar Party 2010!

This was my first time attending an Oscar Party... to be completely honest I don't know if I've ever watched the Oscars. I'm more of a Grammy/MTV award show type person, with people I actually know of and performances left and right.
ANYWAYS, that didn't stop me from dressing up and attending Holly's Oscar Party! Her and her husband, Chris, host a party every year, they had awesome decorations and really went all out!
So I went to Holly's apartment and knocked on the door. A few seconds later she swung open her front door and introduced me to the strobe light red carpet, where she then stuck a sparkling glitter microphone in my face and asked me who designed my dress. I couldn't stop laughing -- she was SO in character. I then walked to the paparazzi area where Chris took my picture and then I finally made it inside!
Stephanie came dressed in cheetah print, and of course don't forget the "bump it" in her hair. Oh I just loved her outfit! Paula was by far the most creative and made a dress out of a sateen sheet, now that's talent! I found a dress that I had worn to a debutant ball with Kyle back in 2002 and of course wore my 'dance team bling' earrings to match. The food that everyone brought was delicious too!
They had about 11 people show, and we all watched the Oscars together. On every commercial they quizzed us on trivia, and before the show even started we had to fill out ballots of who we think would win! A really fun night, I wish Kyle would have been in town to make it but I sure filled up my weekend with some great girl time!! Thanks again Holly for hosting this!

Top 3 Thursday: Musicians

This week's Top 3 Thursday is our favorite musicians! This one was hard for me as my music taste changes daily, but here are the 3 that I always go to no matter what:

1) JOHN MAYER! Kyle and I just LOVE his music (unfortunately NOT him as a person though) and have been to two of his concerts. He truly is so talented and is amazing on stage. Lacey and I are going to his concert here in ATL next week... woo hoo!! On a sidenote I also love: Joshua Radin, Fink, Peter Bradley Adams, Dave Barnes, Amos Lee, Jose Gonzalez, Josh Kelley, Matt Nathanson , and Matt Wertz. They are all guys with a guitar and I love them :)

2) COLDPLAY! We've yet to go to one of their concerts, but I can listen to their music all day long. They just jam on stage and are all so talented.

3) IMOGEN HEAP! I have this whole "weird" music side to me that I absolutely can't live without. These are the songs that I have to listen to with my earphones on b/c some people don't get it -- but I think most are coming around! Some other artists that are in this category are: Adele, Elisa, Feist, Jem, Kate Nash, MIA, Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie, Iron & Wine, Owl City, Santogold, and Sia)

WOAH I completely cheated and put WAY more than 3! What are your favorites?!?!

Joy's Shower!

Last Saturday I was able to make it to Joy's shower! She is a friend from the newlywed small group and her and her husband, Jeremy, will be having a baby boy shortly! The hostesses of the shower had lots of games planned: 1) guess what's in the diaper, 2) decorating bibs, 3) baby bingo, and 4) guess how big the mommy is around with yarn. The diaper game was hilarious and I had no clue what kind of chocolate bars they had chopped up and put in there.
Joy got lots of great things for baby Ryan and we had a fun time watching her open all of her presents. There was some delicious food there as well-- especially the cake!
It was really fun catching up with all the girls from nweds too! We literally spent like ALL weekend together, and laughed so much!

Here are all the nwed girls: (Jeanine, Paula, Stephanie, Holly, me, Joy, Jillian, Jennifer, Brandy)

And I think the over the shoulder look is our trademark now for pictures! haha

Really great way to spend a beautiful Saturday! SO happy for Joy & Jeremy!