Unexpected Thank You Note

Let me start out by saying that I am very thankful that the following chain of events occurred as they did - it turned out much better than what had been my original plan. But, I couldn't help sharing another blonde moment!

The house I lived at in college, Stewart Cooperative, held a Pampered Chef party a while back to celebrate the house's birthday! I was so excited - I love Pampered Chef stuff - what a great opportunity to get some of the items I'd been wanting for my kitchen. And the invitation said we'd be able to purchase gifts for the house and all the hostess bonuses would be given to the house as well!

So, I put together my order of the items I wanted - a skinny scraper, can strainer, meat masher; and my mom had also wanted a can strainer, so I ordered a second one. That pretty much drained the amount I was wanting to spend.... I had planned on the house getting the hostess points/dollars/etc. (but hadn't purchased anything specifically for it).

Today I received a card in the mail from Stewart Cooperative. I thought that was kind of strange - I couldn't figure out a reason for an Alumni letter or anything.... Inside, I found the sweetest thank you note from the girls, expressing their gratitude and excitement over the Pampered Chef items Ben and I had purchased them. They loved them!

I thought this whole situation was so funny - all meals at the cooperative house serve about 40.... so let's just say that TWO small can strainers and a skinny scraper are not very practical (I mean, you could scrape out the Costco-sized cans with a shovel almost:) ). I can't imagine what they thought when they received the items:)!

But I'm very glad the girls have been able to use them and were gracious about my funny gifts. And I'm so thankful that the Lord had a different plan for my Pampered Chef order than my selfish one! :)

Busy Easter Weekend!

Ben and I had a busy Easter weekend! It was WONDERFUL celebrating Jesus Christ's resurrection with our families! We also did a little bit of egghunting:).

We spent Saturday with Ben's side of the family.

Brooklyn had a fun time with all the eggs!

Molly's filling up her sack:)

Hurry, girls!

Even Maris was a professional egghunter!

We also celebrated Brooklyn's first birthday. In our families, the 1-year-old gets their very own cake and gets to be as messy as they want as they eat it:).

Brooklyn went face first - much more efficient:).

We spent Sunday with my side of the family.

Don and Jacob - dressed up as Chicago Cubs:)

Beauties in Blue:)

Funny Faces:)

The Ultimate Billiards Showdown - Mallory vs. Ben

Here comes Corrie:)

The kids decided the buckets worked better as hats.

Gearing up for the big hunt!

Sorting through all the sugar:)

Paul loved his peanut butter egg:)

Mallory took some pictures with the camera and wanted me to remember, so she took a picture of herself:).

Another bucket-head picture:)

Grandpa looked snazzy in Rielly's real Texas cowboy hat!

Anyone hungry?

If so, there is some breakfast cereal on sale!

New Exercise?

What would you do if someone was exercising on one of these at work? It makes me bust up laughing when I watch it!

Hmmmm......

So, I totally failed this test.... See if you can do better:).

Snowed In!

Well, we're in the middle of Cincinnati's biggest snowfall of the year - the area has gotten over 15 in. and it's still snowing! Help! We're trapped - and almost out of milk!:)

Here's the view of our deck.

As a height point of reference, we used Velveeta:). Almost 2 Velveeta blocks tall!

Our Summer Kitchen Table

View from our Front Door

Ben ate.....

SPINACH!!!!!

Can you believe it?!

We had gotten this spinach and cheese ravioli stuff from Costco. I topped it with some Prego and mozzarella cheese. Ben was trying to convince me to only make him 1 ravioli - and even that was going to be a stretch. However, I insisted on making him a small plate full and he finished all of it (and wanted more!)! Yea!!!!

I guess I need to make a run to Costco to buy them out of their spinach and cheese ravioli:)!