Someone has taken up residency in my uterus.

Bath time!

My brother has a pretty awesome saltwater tank.

Roughly, $40 worth of candy.

We went out for lunch today.

Jake was the devil.  He threw all of his food on the floor.  Waitresses love us.

Diaper laundry day!

My mom is Betty Crocker.

She has a pretty kickass brownie pan to prove it.

Yet another crockpot meal...

We pretty much live off of the crockpot.  We have three of them.  We love them.  Here's tonight's recipe:  http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/slow-cooker-chicken-in-red-wine-cooking-for-two/aec27b51-4a5b-4946-b43d-9c3f8bbbdf0c/?WT.dcsvid=MTc1NDgyMTg5NzcS1&rvrin=EA6E7139-55A9-4EF0-B75A-496B2E09C550&WT.mc_id=Newsletter_PB_C42_2012_01_18&nicreatID2=Newsletter_PB_C42_2012_01_18

It smells delish.

It's true. She's 10. Holy cow!

Jakie went on a horsey ride at the mall this afternoon.

Who doesn't love a little Mexican fiesta?

I made oven tacos for dinner tonight. I found the recipe on Pinterest. (I love me some Pinterest.) They were wonderful. I will definitely be making them again.

In unrelated news, Andy and I will be current on Sons of Anarchy in approximately two hours. This means we've watched 54 hours of SoA since we began the series about two and a half weeks ago. We're amazing. Can you believe that anyone has ever accused me of lacking motivation?

The street is abuzz with the sound of snow blowers.

I already posted a picture of the snow in the yard.  It was a view from my garage.  Today you're getting the exact same thing.  It's hard to tell by the pics that there is much a difference.  There is though!  It started snowing last night around midnight.  It just finally stopped.  We got like 5 inches or something like that.  It's kind of a big deal.  The world kind of shut down, a little.  Hey, most schools and a few businesses either didn't open at all or closed early.  5ish inches of snow usually isn't too big of a deal in Iowa, except that we really haven't had much this year.  So this is, so far, the snowstorm of the year.

Strike one! I missed a post.

My mom called me out.  At least someone is reading.  In my defense, I was busy.  I grocery shopped my butt off.  I spent at least two hours collaborating my list.  I was at the stores for a solid three more hours.  Then it took me a good 45 minutes to put everything away.  You don't even want to know how much I spent.  We needed a good stock-up though.  I can't remember the last time I did any heavy grocery shopping.  We've just been taking short and quick trip for the bare essentials.  We've been eating out and ordering in far too much.  Now we have an extra fridge/freezer to fill up.  It was time.

I'm going to bend the rules a little here.  Blogger allows me to adjust the time and date of my posts.  I'm going to back date this post and fill in my missing gap.  To make up for my crimes against humanity, I'll do a double pic.

The crazy-long (4 page!) grocery list:

I have a fridge in my basement now!

My husband hauled it downstairs today.  It was a treacherous journey.  He rocks.  Bonus, it was free.  Until my mom tells us how much she wants for it, that is.  ;-)

Andy's grandma's funeral was today.

We were each given a rose. The service was beautiful.

Howdy, partner! We just had a romantic dinner for two, at the Pizza Ranch.

Andy's grandma passed away a few days ago. Her wake was this evening. We took Jake to my mom because he's a wildebeest...err...his behavior isn't typically suitable for that type of setting. Liz went with us but we took her back to her mom early. We were starving when everything wrapped up. Our hunger led us to the fabulous ranch. We just happily (and quietly) finished throwing back enough fried chicken and greasy pizza to put us both into cardic arrest. Ride em', cowboy!

Jake, using his new construction silverware.

We just may have found the secret to getting him to eat dinner!

Hives?

Jacob's had this weird rash thing going on all day.  He's acting fine.  We're not really sure what's going on.  We've consulted Dr. Google.  We've consulted Dr. Pranger.  (Dr. Pranger is Jake's real doctor.)  The overall consensus has been that he has hives.  I don't know why though.  He really hasn't been exposed to anything new.  He had peanut M&Ms last night, for the first time ever. Though, he's had many other peanut products without any reaction.  Also, we didn't notice anything was different until this morning.  If it was the M&Ms, we probably should have seen something last night.

What we first saw this morning looked like welts and bug bites.  Now it looks more spread out and blotchy.   He was itching a really big spot this morning, but otherwise he hasn't seemed to be aware of it.  It comes and goes and moves.  It seems to concentrate where he is warmest.  For example, he napped on his tummy with his legs tucked underneath him.  When he woke up, his whole belly was covered.  Also, it was heavily concentrated on the backs of his knees, as they had been folded.

Andy just ran to the store for some Benadryl.  I hate to medicate him when it doesn't really seem necessary.  He doesn't seem uncomfortable in any way.  I want to see if Benadryl clears him up though.  That way I can rest assured that this really is just allergies.  I think that's probably pretty obvious at this point - but allergies to what???

I apologize for this way lame pic.  He was crazy wild and didn't want to sit still for the camera.  The camera doesn't really do the rash/hives any justice either.  It's hard to photograph these things.

Jake's currently raising hell at my parents' house.

He looks all sweet and innocent, sitting in a rocking rocking chair.  He's not though.  He's a Tasmania devil and he tears their house (and them) to shreds when he visits.

We have snow!

I'm not supposed to be happy about it, but I am.  Up until now, we've only had snow accumulation once this winter.  It was a light dusting and it melted a few hours later.  This winter hasn't felt like winter at all.  It's messing with my natural balance.  One of the insurance agencies in town has something about winter being half over on their sign.  Really?  Crazy!

Liz went to school on time this morning, but they dismissed early.  This stuff is supposed to continue into the night.  I'm thinking school will be cut short tomorrow too.  Lucky kids, we hardly ever had snow days!

The view from my garage:

Jacob wears cloth diapers.

I'm obsessed with them.  When something new comes out, I still have to try it.  Today's mail:

We're having a joint birthday bash for our kiddos this year.

We checked out of the venue tonight.  The kids had a blast.  Then we ate at Red Lobster.  The kids are in bed now.  Andy and I are watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix.  There's 39 episodes. We started about five days ago and we're already up to the ninth episode.  We're obsessed.

I'm cleaning house today.

Jake made out like a bandit for Christmas.  With his birthday just around the corner, it's time to filter through his stash.  I hadn't bothered to box up the itty bitty baby toys until today.  Here they all are, sans batteries.  They think they're off to bigger and better places, but they're really just going to get shoved into a corner of my dark and stinky basement. ;-)

Jake found a treasure.

I took all the pacifiers away when he was 10 months old.  We never looked back.  He found a stray the other day.  He doesn't even know how to use it properly.  He just chews on it.  I think he thinks it's cute and cool.  It's been amusing so I haven't tossed it yet.

Mama just needs a good drink sometimes.

Tonight was date night for Andy & I. It included trips to HyVee and Menards, Jake, and more Hot Wheels and tractors than I prefered to travel with.

We're having Christmas with Andy's family tonight. I spent nap time wrapping.

It was a record-setting 59 degrees today. We went to the park.

It felt so good to spend the whole day with my son after a few days away.

We had to take the baby gate down when Jake stayed with Grandma because she needed it at her house.  We decided not to put it back up.  It's working out quite well.  I like having a little buddy in my footsteps everywhere I go.  In celebration of my Jake-filled day, here's a picture of the tractor brigade that he lined up next to me on the loveseat.

We're home. We were fortunate enough to snag a pic before we left this morning.

We spent the majority of this afternoon getting our shop on in glorious downtown Galena.

A relaxing soak, after a night full of gambling...

We're out of town. We got hitched five years ago & we think that's super worthy of a celebration. It would be a little better if our son wasn't running a fever back at home. Grandma's weathering that storm for us, luckily. So here we are, making the most of our very first stay at a B&B.