My Little Life

Boy, sure has been awhile since Gram and I have had the chance to hang out and cook! I was missing her! Gram had the idea to do her Super Nachos, in time for the big game on Sunday!

Truth be told, I couldn't give a rat's hind-end about the Super Bowl. Except, I think it's kinda cool that a kid I've watched play high school football is one of the stars! None other than Eric Decker himself (and my, oh my, has he turned out to be a fine young man). ;) My little bro played football against Eric...he wasn't a defensive player (he also was a receiver), but they'd put him in to cover Decker 'cuz he was the only one that could possibly keep up to him!

And now Eric is a big ol' football star with a pretty little country singer wife and a reality show. Crazy what life can bring for a small town Minnesota boy!

I digress...back to the NACHOS!! Yum.

Super easy and incredibly delicious!

Brown some hamburger.



Add some onion.


And as many "shakes" of Tabasco as you c…

There are several reasons I started blogging. To capture and preserve photos of my kids. To remember their little quirks. To get on a soap box about various things. To tell you crazy stories. To share little tidbits of information that I've gleaned.

This post is one of the latter reasons.

So, y'all know about the "Great TV Debacle of 2013", right?

Ugh. Still makes me shake my head in disgust. Side note: I have now started to notice flat screen TV's in the backgrounds of peoples' tweets/FaceBook posts/Instagrams and OH MY. They are in the DANGER ZONE, PEOPLE!!! I look at them and think, "How did our TV only last 25 days?!"

I digress.

We decided to go with the offer Vizio gave us. Our "special order" went through, delayed a bit by its "specialness", then came the shipping game...so-and-so company would be calling us the night before to let us know of a time frame for delivery. We got our phone call and made sure we were home "betwe…

One of the fun perks of my new job is that I get to sneak in on the motivational speakers that come to talk to our students and OH MY have we had some good ones.

First up, Chad Varga. Dude has an AMAZING story. Horrific childhood, pro-basketball career, gave it all up to make a difference in kids' lives. Of all the speakers my biggest boy has listened to, Chad is the ONLY one that Pal came home and spontaneously brought up on his own.

Chad's talk had me all teary...it absolutely TORE at my mama heartstrings. He spoke of how his 8 year old sister became the caretaker, reaching across their mattress at night and rubbing his forehead to help him fall asleep. Gracious. Pass the tissues.

He message was great: You make your own success. By all accounts, this young man should have been a "statistic", instead, he set his mind on being successful. Awesome story.

Then, just Monday, I had the privilege of hearing VJ Smith talk. VJ told us about the "Richest Man in Town"..…

Shortly before Christmas I received an email that, to be honest with you, I thought was spam at first...I mean, c'mon, could a well known website REALLY be wanting me to do a guest post for them?!

Turns out...YES!! And so, yours truly, had the pleasure and honor of being a guest poster on whattoexpect.com!! EEEEEEK!! I know, exciting, right?!

You'll have to go check it out...those of you who've read here for quite some time get my humor...those who don't "know me" well, well...apparently they're all offended that I made them self conscious about their labor breath. Sheesh. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY! 

Ha ha? 

Get it? A joke? You know, one of those things that makes you giggle a little inside?

Geepers Lou, lighten up a bit!

Anyway, here's the link! 
http://www.whattoexpect.com/wom/pregnancy/a-labor-and-delivery-nurse-s-top-10-tips-for-giving-birth-naturally.aspx

If you follow me on Twitter (which, by the way, if you don't, why not?!) ;) then you know that last Sunday I was able to attend a "glamorous" event...the St. Jude Red Carpet for Hope! We were also the ONLY location in the US that had a live screening of the Golden Globes...exciting, huh?!



Well, I bullied my friend J. to go with me:



I'll be honest, when we pulled up to a very non-descript building, with only a small "non-glamorous" sign depicting where we were, I was a little worried that we'd over dressed for the event. So, we waited in the van until we saw other women in dresses with fancy hair walking in...then we decided it was safe! :)

When we walked in, the room was anything but "non-descript"...it was beautiful, and even had a "red carpet" for that "wanna-be celebrity moment"! :)


The event was to raise money for the wonderful organization that is St. Jude. Did you know that any child treated there never sees a bill?! Amaz…

OHMIGOSH, you guys...have you heard the news?

IT'S FREAKING FREEZING OUTSIDE!!!

Oh, you have heard? Silly me...I didn't think it was all over the news, or anything.

In other news, Disney's "Frozen" was #1 at the box office last weekend. Okay, okay...DISNEY, YOU WIN. Brilliant marketing plan. Simply, brilliant. (Now, we get the picture, can you please turn the heat back on?)

But seriously...it is so cold. So unbelievably cold...our governor actually closed all MN schools today. Windchills close to 50 below. Gross. For those of you that know cold weather, you know when it's cold out and your nostrils feel like they're going to freeze together? It totally feels like the same thing is happening to my throat!

Save me.

Or send a plane ticket to somewhere warm and tropical.

Once Christmas is over I am SO DONE with winter. Bring on the heat, so we can complain about that, instead! ;) 

Anyway, I wanted to make sure y'all heard about the cold weather...I was so certain…

It's back to school we go!

And, yeah, I'm a little bummed. (Or, a lot bummed.) I just HATE it when Christmas ends. Mostly because I love Christmas...big, fat, puffy heart LOVE Christmas, but also, because it kinda makes me like winter for a little bit.

Christmas just isn't the same to me unless we have a bunch of snow on the ground, so I welcome winter with open arms...until after Christmas. Then? Then winter is just sucky.

Gross.

Grody.

Cold.

Yucky.

Months upon months of frigid cold without anything to look forward to to break it up a bit. And, of course, the whole "back to school" thing. The end of Christmas break. The end of my time with my kiddos under feet all day (yeah, sure, somedays are a little nutso, but overall? I LOVE the time with my kids.).

And so, today we are back to work, school, the daily grind. Some schools around us got the remainder of this week off (a whole TWO WEEKS off!!) and I'm green with envy of them. I was sooooooo hoping for a snow day or…