Bode calls and Shaun White analogies

My family loves the Olympics. We watch the events we love right along with the ones we find stupid (read ice dancing) and talk about all of the athlete gossip. At no other time during the year do Bode Miller or Lindsey Vonn come up, but during the few weeks that the Olympics are on they are regular topics of conversation. So it should come as no surprise that as my dad was holding Mike and watching the men's downhill he started wiggling Mike's torso side to side and talking about doing the "Bode wiggle" and "Bode calls." Also, as we were getting ready to fly back to Saint Louis my dad came up to me and said. "Well, Mike is like Shaun White, the first time he got a gold medal (referring to when my dad was in St. Louis right after Mike was born), and this time he blew it out of the park." I heart my family.

Doing the "Bode wiggle"

Up up and away

I had been dreading it and stressing about it for weeks...taking an infant on an airplane. We have all been on planes where babies cry incessantly the entire flight, and I was worried that my adorable sweet little baby would turn into a little green monster the minute we boarded the plane and would scream from Saint Louis to Salt Lake. So in the days leading up to our flight I worried and stressed and tried to plan as best as I could to help turn the tables in my favor of having a happy baby on our flight.

When we arrived at the airport we asked the woman at the check in counter if we could plane side check his carseat. She told us our first flight wasn't even close to full and we could just leave him in the seat for the flight (one good reason southwest doesn't assign seats I suppose). So my worry subsided a little bit ( he REALLY likes his carseat). Once we are on the plane I keep glancing (or maybe staring) nervously at my little guy waiting for him to wake up and scream. I was met with this for the first 2 hours of the flight:

After 2 hours he woke up and decided he was hungry. After eating he spent the remainder of the flight smiling and talking to us.


All and all a great flight!

Valingtimes Day

Brad and I are REALLY bad at Valentine's day. For the first 7ish years of our relationship we tried the "traditional" Valentine's day thing. You know what I'm talking about, flowers, chocolates, dinner, etc. Well, we would always get into a big fight. For example, one year he got me a camelback for Valentine's day. Now, not that I didn't like the gift, but it wasn't what I expected for Valentine's day (read: I expected flowers...hey, at least I'm honest). So every year we would get in a big fight over stupid things. So after years of this happening we decided to just stop trying to celebrate a "traditional" Valentine's day. Not to say we gave up entirely, we would normally go out to dinner together and then roam the aisle's of Target or Wal-Mart and buy chocolates at 50% off, and if we did buy any sort of a gift we would buy it together and it would be something we could both use (last year we got a Sam's Club membership...romantic I know). Since we have stopped having expectations of what Valentine's day should be we haven't gotten in a fight. So imagine my surprise when this showed up at my door yesterday while Brad was at work.


Two dozen beautiful roses AND a box of chocolates. Now one of my favorite phrases is "boys are dumb." Think about it, there are a million examples of how true these three words are. This is NOT one of them. Brad...you did good :)

And Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Grandma

My mom was giving me grief for not having enough pictures of Michael on here (or not putting up new pictures often enough). So in order to appease grandma here are some recent pictures...

He was really excited about seeing himself in the mirror in his book.

Playing on his playmat.

Getting ready to go visit Kari, Bill and Will.

Snuggling with mom on the couch during the playoffs.

Happy Birthday Dad!!! (A day late)

Happy Birthday to the greatest dad in the world. I have no idea what I would ever do without you!

Mike, meet Mike. The first time my dad met his grandson. December 2009

He liked the butterfly house so much it hurt. July 2008

Cross country skiing, March 2009.

While I am away the boys will play...

I went to the gym yesterday and when I got home this is how I found my boys. I guess Brad is teaching Mike the intricacies of video gaming at a very early age.

(by the way, thanks for the cute hoodie mom!)

Maple Pecan Pull Aparts

I figured every once in a while I better talk about something besides Mike or you all might think I have a one track mind (which I do, but that's besides the point). So I decided to post the recipe for one of my favorite desserts (it can also double as a breakfast item).

3/4 c. chopped pecans
~1/2 c. butter
1/3 c. syrup
~1/2 c. sugar
1/2 TBS cinnamon
2 (12 0z) or 3 (7.5 oz) cans of refrigerated biscuits

Preheat oven to 400. Pam a bundt pan and sprinkle the pecans in the bottom of the pan. Mix 2 TBS of melted butter with the syrup and drizzle over the pecans. Melt the remaining butter. Mix the cinnamon and sugar. Cut the biscuits into quarters and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place into the pan and intermittently drizzle with butter. Bake 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool one minute and invert onto a serving dish.