We've become those people.

Our punky has been counting this far for about a month now.
Problem is, she becomes completely camera shy as soon as we try to tape it.

Tonight, she finally decided to allow the paparazzi to film!
Because we never have the opportunity to capture things, we could not decide which one was our fave.

So...we are most definitely those parents. Behold: One child, two videos.

(Don't worry - they're only 20 and 45 seconds, respectively.)


Ten!

Ten again!

this is joy

Our little E-bear had her 15-month appointment today. 

We asked her doctor if we should be concerned that she hasn't started walking.

The doctor said that it's fine that she's not walking...as long as she stands up independently for some periods of time.

Well. She doesn't really do that. Barely ever, and only for about 2 seconds. If that.

(The girl says almost 30 words, but will not walk without holding onto someone. Go figure.) 

So tonight, we decided to start practicing the standing alone. 

She stood for at least 10 seconds! 

We clapped, we took pictures on our phones. 

And suddenly...she walked!

She walked.

I screamed.

She fell.

We laughed.

I burst into tears.

She looked at me and burst into tears.

I don't even care that our video camera battery was dead.
(Mac to the rescue again.)
It's just so amazing.

And! It's almost like she is making up for lost time. So steady on her feet!

round leg, square hole.

About 5 minutes ago, I went in to check on E.

I couldn't believe my eyes.  

I called her dad and her grandpa to come in and take a look - then grabbed the camera. 

(Before you start to wonder - Yes, we turn the lights off for our daughter to sleep. 

These photos were taken in the dark. Just had to use flash to capture the image.)

She did catch me! Oops. 

She went right back to sleep. After we pried her loose, of course.

And with those adorably chubby 15-month-old thighs, it was no small feet feat!

trashy-amazing lunch

For about 2 years, my friend has been telling me about a certain sandwich he likes.

Every time I'd hear about it, my stomach would flip in anticipation.

But I've never been able to experience it. 

Until today.

And it was Worth. The. Wait.

Here it is: The glory that is chicken biscuit. Or, if you're cool like us, "chicken biz."

Freshly baked buttermilk biscuits.

Fried chicken! 

The not-so-secret ingredients.

 Split the biscuit, and top it with butter. Lots of butter.

 

Fargo's own Julia Child shows us how it's done.

Throw a big piece of chicken on top of the butter.

 

Drizzle with some Frank's Red Hot. Lots of Frank's.

 

 Drizzle the entire thing with honey.

(This is what makes the meal.)

 The finished product. Dripping with amazing.

You should know - it looks neat, but looks can be deceiving. 

Because our friends discovered the original sandwich at a delightfully down-home place 

in New York, we kept our meal simple, as well. You can see the paper plates above.

We also used Solo cups + Sharpie.

(One for everyone - and E's matched.)

Napkins, schmapkins. Pass me the roll of Bounty.

 And, remember when I said it was deceptively neat? 

Things get crazy.

You eat. Dip it in the Frank's/honey mixture. Eat more. Add more honey.

Repeat.

Oh man, oh man. It was so good!

And messy.

So messy, in fact, that Frank's was discovered on my forehead 40 minutes later. 

And on the other side of my forehead 10 minutes after that. 

And there may or may not have been some in my eye.

On this, the nicest day of the year so far, I am too full to even think about going outside for a walk.

Instead, I'm going to wrap up this entry and rest contentedly on the couch - and hopefully
drift into a chicken biz sleep. No regrets.

long time, no read

Time to catch up. As promised, I've backlogged (backblogged?) posts to recap what went unwritten when our camera cord was lost. You can click these individually, or just start with the Christmas posting and read all the posts (newer) after it.

Yikes! That was a lot of work. Lesson learned. From oldest to newest, for your viewing pleasure...

Christmas

12 Days of Christmas

First Birthday Party

Bowling

Granite City

8 Months of Videos

videos killed the radio star

We bought our new camera on 4th of July weekend when went to see Caroline Smith.
It's been a great camera. It takes great pictures and videos.

However! What we didn't realize is that the video feature is not compatible with Macs, so we have taken a few videos - but unable to retrieve them from the camera. It's just no good.

I won't bore you with the details, but I recently figured out how to upload them. Yay! So now we have 8 months of videos to share. (Aren't you lucky?) These go from oldest to most recent.

This * means the video contains pretty everyday content, and you probably won't think it's cute unless you're related to us. But feel free to watch 'em all anyway.

Enjoy!

Rolling! 3 months.

Talking - not quite crawling. 4 months. *

A girl and her dog. 4 months.

Mama's obnoxious voice. 5 months.*

Laundry basket pull-ups. 9 months. *

Singing. 10 months.

11 months. Part I.  Destroy.

11  months. Part II. *

Hips don't lie. 13 months.

Reading. 13 months.

Laughing at myself. 13 months.

date night [february]

Hello. Welcome to our inactive-for-far-too-long blog.

We're back. Sort of.

Life got busy. We lost pieces of our camera - multiple pieces at different times. 

And life got busy again.

But we're still here! 

I've spent the evening organizing our photos starting at Christmas. 2011.

I still want to blog all the events that we've slacked on. Yeesh. It's going to take some time.

For now, feast your eyes on this. 

If you know me, you know I enjoy food. And talking about food. And pictures of food. 

You may also know that my Christmas gift to my sweet husband was a preplanned, prepaid date night once a month for all of 2012. He opens an envelope on the first of the month to find out what we'll do that month. 

For February, we went to a fancy/delicious place for dinner. 

I can't accurately explain how amazing it was. See for yourself!

 I ordered a wedge as my side salad.
They're usually ridiculously good anyway, but this one! This one had blue cheese chunks the size of my palm. Uhm-azing. Oh man, it was so good!

 

Of course, the cheese deserves more than one measly photo.
It was the creamiest blue I've ever tasted. I saved every last piece of it for last.

 The Mr. ordered the world's largest steak. Creamy garlic mashed potatoes on the side. They were buttery smooth. Delicious! 

The steak came with onions on the side. They were soaked in some sort of sweet and sour sauce before they were breaded and fried. It was sweet but vinegary - the perfect pairing!

 

And as a variation on the blue cheese theme, my main dish was pasta in Gorgonzola cream sauce. 

Topped with chicken breast and shiitake mushrooms, this was divine.

Such a good meal, I involuntarily said, "Yum!" after every bite.

(R thought it was pretty funny.)

 

 We like to eat!

 I snapped this little gem but had to try again so it would at least look like he was enjoying himself.

(Get a load of that fresh rosemary. Mmmm!)

Love!

 We were completely stuffed, so we decided to walk off some of the meal by trekking to Target. We picked up some birthday presents (1-year and 2-year gifts for boys. So fun to shop for!). And, because it was a fancy day, we picked up some special treats for ourselves.

R's pick:

For me: 

 

It was perfect. Highly recommend.

March's date: 

Dinner out. Movie and treats at Fargo Theatre.

Special bonus man date - Hair cut and hot lather shave at a local barber.