Everyday Life: 01.20.12 – 01.26.12

Ahhhh… it feels so good to be sitting back at home in front of my computer writing out a blog post! I returned home late Wednesday night am taking my time settling back in. It’s always a good feeling to know that I am glad to be home. I love our little life here in Tennessee :) Vacations are wonderful, but home is better. And that is a good thing right? Especially since vacations only occupy about 4% to 8% of daily life per year! Yay for home!

Now onto photos! Most of these photos are still left over from vacation but there will be one or two from yesterday :) Here we go…

As I mentioned last week, while I was in Oregon I stayed with Jason’s parents. My Mother-in-law made me the most wonderful lunch while I was there and I can’t wait to repeat it at home. A turkey-provalone-avacado-tomato sandwich on half a toasted bagel. Plus, some turnip slices, carrots and a couscous salad. Everything was wonderful! How is that for a gourmet lunch at home?!

I have 4 nephews and one niece. Their favorite thing to do is wrestle. Especially when my younger brother (their uncle) comes for a visit. It is always wrestling time. It’s pretty cute!

Noah getting ready for bed, already in his pajamas. Can you believe my sister-in-law makes pajamas for all 5 kids every Christmas? She seriously is super mom!

We spent some time with my Grandma and while we were there we looked over some old photo albums. There is a rumor that we are related to Abraham Lincoln through his wife Mary Todd Lincoln and this is the paper that maps it out. Whether it is true or not, I don’t know. I have never done any research to figure it out. The bottom name on the list, Iris Wolfer Yoder, is my paternal Grandmother.

Wrestling isn’t the only favorite pastime. They also love reading. And once you start reading to them it’s hard to stop because they all want to pick a book out for you to read :) And they are so adorable it’s hard to resist their charms!

My niece, Lily, turned 2 years old yesterday. We celebrated her birthday while we were there and she requested a duck cake. So, my sister-in-law, Jodi, made this cake for her. I was wondering how she was going to do it and I think it turned out pretty amazing. Lily loved it. She wouldn’t share her duck with anyone :)

Jodi and Lily share the same birthday. Since Jodi made a cake for Lily, I made a cake for Jodi. I had never made a multi colored cake before but it was pretty simple and I love how it turned out. This isn’t a very good photo but you get the idea! The kids decorated the outside with figures of the family made from candy. It turned out so cute and tasted pretty good as well!

I didn’t really take any outfit photos while I was there. I just never thought of it. But in this case, I was at Starbucks waiting for Jodi and my Mom and I snapped a photo. Gotta love leopard print purses!

My older brother (yes, the one with five kids!) is in his first year of nursing school. He is super dad! We got to go visit him at school one day and take a little tour of his classes. It was fun to see where he is spending his time.

Part of the tour included seeing the mannequins. It was really interesting. They can do so many things. I would really like to be there while they are working with them but just seeing them was good too!

And finally, after 12 days of vacation, we headed home. It was a great trip!

We had an awesome pilot on the way home. There was some reported turbulence so he flew lower than normal and then pointed things out to us. We flew low over Colorado and it was so beautiful. We got to see Pike’s peak and lot’s of snow. It made me want to go to Colorado again! Although next time, I hope I go when it is my idea rather than how it went down last time :)

Yesterday, when I was back in town, I went to the library. I sat for a bit and looked at magazines and I loved seeing Oprah magazine with the chalk drawings by Dana Tanamachi. You can see some more of them here and on her site here. She also did lettering for West Elm at Christmastime and it was so awesome.

Last night we celebrated a birthday for a friend of mine at a local Mexican restaurant. I almost always get chicken tacos on corn tortillas but this time I added avocado and it was wonderful! I love Mexican, it’s one of my favorite foods.

And that pretty much sums up my week and the rest of my vacation. Now I have to get back to work on things around the house but first I am going to go on a date with my husband tonight because I missed him while I was gone!!

Have a great weekend!