Fall...

A few weeks back we went away for the night for Zach's thirtieth birthday. We decided to head in search of Fall and boy did we ever find it in Tennessee! We took a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smokey Mountains and it. was. gorgeous. 

Take your breath away gorgeous. 

I don't know if it was the fact that we hadn't seen a mountain in over a year or what, but we were SO excited to see them. Coming from B.C. in Canada, mountains were taken for granted and I can honestly say that both Zach and I have grown a new appreciation for them!

And the trees....OH the trees! So Fallish and wonderful! 

I got some great shots of the kids too...

I mean, how cute are they?! LOVE these two :) 

Zach was super sweet and stopped at every rest stop I asked him to (and a bunch of places in between) and I got some fabulous pictures of the scenery.

What a good man.

We're already planning a trip back to the Smokey Mountains this Christmas so that we can see some snow! Poor Aubrey is just dying to build fort and make a snow angel. All we hear from her is, "I sure miss snow... but we live in Georgia and we don't get snow anymore" on a huff.

It's worth the 5 hour drive just to make her happy (although the car ride will inevitably make her grumpy!).

Surprise!!

BAAM! 

you just never know when i'm gonna pop up on this ol' blog :)

here I am on another friday night by my lonesome and i actually got the kids to bed at a decent time.

so here i sit with a coffee (because i woulda been asleep the minute those kiddos were if i didn't, it was THAT kinda day) and i thought i should whip up a blog post.

i actually got crafty today, aubrey and i made a fabric scrap christmas light garland...thingy-majig.

it turned out super cute and if i wasn't so tired/lazy right now, i'd upload the pictures and show them.

but i am (tired and lazy), so hot air balloon pictures from a week back it is!

i'll let the garland pictures come in my next surprise post ;)

we've been seeing this one hot air balloon flying around on the weekends and on our way home one night, we happened to finally see it close to our house (in gorgeous late evening lighting i might add! best. time. of. day. period.). zach being the fabulous fella he is, let me grab my camera from home and drove me back out to capture it. 

seriously, there is something SO breathtaking about a hot air balloon isn't there?!

my new official goal is to get to a festival and get pictures of dozens of them flying at once.

oooo and at night too! wouldn't that be glorious?!?

as we were driving back to the spot where the balloon was, we saw that it was landing and my heart sank. what are the odds that zach actually drove me back to get my camera and i missed it in flight?! but  i got out to take a few shots of it grounded anyway. after they unloaded some people, i noticed that they were taking off again. heavenly!! was all i could think....

don't you agree??

and this last one might be my favorite shot of the bunch. the moon was so bright in the sky, but it was still fully daylight. i could not have timed this whole thing better if i planned!

blissful :)

Looking Back....

I dug out my old external hard drive today. When I plugged that sucker in, I found a whole lotta wonderful...

Pictures from the Europe trip that Zach and I took right before we moved to Grenada.... back before this whole become-a-doctor business.... back before we had kids... we were pretty much still kids ourselves... anyway, moving on...

All these pictures were taken on a point and shoot and are nothing spectacular, but I edited them a bit and I just love them! It's probably the memories that are making them look even more fabulous to me.

I'll take it.

The first two shots were in Salzburg and the rest are from Venice.

Oh man my heart is aching to go back! It's been WAY too long and sadly it will be even longer until we get to go again.

Oh well, looking at old pictures will have to do for now

I. Miss. Europe.

"Never Gonna Craft Again"...

*my sister said i should change my blog title to that. i think she miiiighta been hinting at something, but astrid tends to be subtle with these things, so who knows....

*this post is kind of like a diamond.... it was created under of pressure....not because it's going to be some sort of gem. a gem it will certainly not be. i don't have a gem of a post in me. 

*my hundreds of fans (okay, 3) have been pestering me to write something. but what do you write when you can't think of anything to say?!?

*thus the perfect makings for a random thoughts post. i'm a random kinda gal, so this works out just fine for me.

*i've been a sad sad creature in the crafting/photography department as of late.

*we just had our friends ryan, meg and little asher here for a visit and not one picture was taken (except the terribly crappy phone camera variety).

*we had a fabulous visit with them, but they got a good dose of what it was like to have a husband in residency. zach was supposed to be home friday night, and all day saturday and sunday....NOPE. he was home for some of saturday and then all of sunday. oh well. what can you do?? these things can't be helped.

*on sunday zach told me, "sooooo, i probably wont see you guys until next sunday... this week's going to be crazy" ah yes, nothing like a comment like that to get you pumped for the week.

*on a happier note, i was baptized a few weeks back! 

*one of the most fabulous things was aubrey was there to see it. zach told me she yelled out, "that's my mama!' when she saw me get in the baptismal tank. TOO PRECIOUS!

*we didn't get to go to church this past sunday and i was watching our church on tv (yup, it's one of those mega churches) and they showed my baptism on tv! 

*this makes me all kinds of pumped! i was really hoping/praying it would be televised so maybe a non-believer would be able to see it and a seed would be planted in their hearts :) 

*caleb is sick. 

*having a sick 6 month old who already got an 'F' in sleeping is not fun. 

*what's worse than an F?? F-'?? he gets that. 

*my new favorite show is Go On. seriously, it's soooo good!

*oh matthew perry, so funny.

*not going to lie, i love me some breaking amish as well.... although the latest episode had the feel of jersey shore... might not make the cut anymore. oh the rogue amish getting into trouble.

*it's still hot here. seriously. october 16th and hot. everyone sick of me whining yet?! 

*i'm sick of having to still be whining about the weather.... cuz it's still hot....on october 16th. ugh.

*i think i'm going to ride this wave and go get crafty now. 

wish me luck....

The New Time-Suck....

I'm already on Facebook and Pinterest, officially the 2 greatest time-sucks out there and guess what?!? I found a worse one. Yup, it's way worse(for me anyway).

Couponing.

I've always used coupons, I wouldn't be a true, frugal Mennonite if I didn't. But I've never taken it to the next level and couponed (yes, there is a difference) until now.

It's amazing the things you will do when you realize things are tight and you want to do your part to help lower the cost of "life". I figure that this is my way of having an "income" while being an at-home-mom of two (emphasis on AT HOME... we only have one car, and that combined with Zach's crazy schedule and call shifts, the kids and I are home all. week. long.).

So couponing it is, and let me tell you,

it's ADDICTING!

As soon as I walked out of the first grocery store with $40 worth of stuff for $10.40, I was hooked. 

And my maniacal grin as I walked to our car (with Zach and the kids waiting in it) told Zach that I was forever hooked.

My first haul from 2 stores... $140 worth of groceries for $47!!

First words out of his mouth were, "we are NOT going to be those people with a pantry full of deodorant!"! Hahaha love him. Was I supposed to just leave the 2 deodorants behind that I was going to get for free?? NO chance. A few minutes later he said, "we're going to be the best smelling most well groomed people EVER". I mean, come on?? Would that be the worst thing ever?!?

I didn't think so.

All this to say, I'm serious about this new endeavor and with websites like www.southernsavers.com it's just made it idiot proof...well, Jen proof anyway.

At this point, I'm obviously still figuring the whole crazy thing out, but I've been spending less on groceries and have been accumulating quite the stockpile. All good things in my books!

Best part, it seems that it's the nice grocery stores that have the best deals and coupon policies, so I get to shop in the classier stores! Yay!

Anyhoop, you know I wouldn't leave you without some pictures of the ol' kiddos.....

How precious are they?! 

How did Caleb get to be 5 months already??

How do I have a 4 year old?? 

Why do we only have one car?

Why does Publix not consider Target a "competitor" when it comes to couponing?

Will Zach ever be home in time for dinner?

These are all questions that fly through my head on a daily basis......

My Days....

have been filled with these two jokers :) 

And I'm lovin' it! They are just two of the most precious people EVER!

I mean, look at this face?!

Caleb has been given the, very appropriate, nickname "Perfect Baby". This kid is no fuss... at. all. EVER.

He's the most go with the flow baby... except for today, but I'm going to pretend that his day full of crying just didn't happen. 

It's kinda like Olympic judging, eliminate the highest and lowest score.

So moving on....

Aubrey's so in love with him (still and we're past the 'novelty' stage) and it's almost to the point of painful. Fo reals. 

She and Caleb had well baby visits on the same day(thus the dueling band aid picture). She got her 4 year shots and he his 2 month ones--- and she felt it was her mission to "help" him even more that day.

This kid puts the "mother" in "smother"....

the "S" on "mother"....

she's all up in his business.

But I'll take her obsessive, possessive love of him over a kid who is jealous ANY day.

And in unrelated news.... It's hot in Georgia. 

Hide in your house hot.

Walk to the mailbox and break out into a sweat, hot.

Will I ever get used to this?!?

Oh hi there. 

*insert elaborate turn to a camera with cheesy grin* 

I'm Jen.

You might remember me from such blog posts as

"Aubrey's 4th Birthday" and "One Month And Charleston"....

I know, I know... It's been a while. But guess what?? I'm not going to give some lame excuse.

Seriously. I'm not because I don't need one.

That's right. I'm owning my blog hiatus. In fact, I didn't just take a blog break. I kinda took an Internet break... really a computer break.

*insert a pat on my own back*

I didn't mean to, just kinda did and I feel fabulous :)

Anyhoop, I'm back and will hopefully be posting regularly again. 

You're welcome.