b-day mail

It's normal to receive mail addressed to your 2 year old nickname, right?!

This photo was taken "polaroid style" in honor of the sender himself.  Those who know Papa Roger, know he loves some polaroids (and disposable cameras)...who wants to mess with one of those complicated digital things?

My namesake great-grandmother, Willa Bell, was really called Willie Bell by her father and so this nickname was born.  Amelia Willa aka Sweet Willie aka Milly...I'll stop here...I have a lot of nicknames but I'll spare you!  This one is just particularly "sweet" and worth sharing.

P.S. The day after I wrote this post, I kid you not, we received a save-the-date card addressed to Brent & Mildawg Cole. Normal.

twisters

Sorry for my hiatus! I've had several complaints from you followers and I apologize. :) Life outside of work came knocking right after the tax deadline and I haven't slowed down since! I celebrated my 28th birthday - thanks for all the calls, emails, texts, etc!  I somewhat got our house back in living/working condition.  I made the long journey home over Easter weekend to see some cute egg-hunting-munchkins and make a car swap with RWC.  I got home Monday night and it started storming and hailing 30 minutes later.  I'm sure you've heard about the big storm that swept the South by now, right?!? Tornado sirens started sounding Tuesday evening while I was in Kroger doing some grocery shopping. I waited until they went off and made the quick drive to our house.  We woke up several times that night to bad thunder.  The next morning, as I was getting ready for work, they issued another Tornado Warning.  I waited this one out in the downstairs bathroom.  I finally hopped in the car and hurried to work about 10 am once the Warning had been lifted.  As I'm gathering my purse for my lunch break around 12:30ish the sirens start sounding again and we learn another Tornado Warning has been issued until 2 pm.  My co-workers and I wait this one out in the basement floor of the office next door.  Just before 2, a tornado touched down southeast of town, making a path only a few miles from our house!  My co-worker's good friend lost their home (click on the link below for photos).  Devastating.  Thankfully, we "weathered" the storm ok...B-Dub was at school each time, by the way.

Photos of the damage: click here

smoothie kick

we have been on a smoothie kick around here lately.  back in january, i did the tracy anderson 30-day method and a lot of the recipes on the meal plan called for breaking out the ol' blender.  b-dub was ever so nice and helped me out a lot with all the food/meal prep.  anyway, i think once we had the blender dusted off and saw how easy it was to make something so super delicious and so super healthy, we were hooked!  

this is a recipe we have tried (and love!) that is awesome for sneaking in some healthy greens.  i promise you do not even taste the spinach! 



































{image via one charming party}



also, wally world has this new "blend and go" mini blender that is so convenient!  we got one last week and we really like it so far.  it makes the whole process even easier since you don't have to worry with washing out the blender, making a mess pouring your smoothie, etc. love it! but the ol' standard blender works just fine, too! y'all give it a try!

{oster my blend personal blender}

tulips

i'm not getting off to a very good start here...but bear with me, i'm buried under tax returns!  once i dig my way out, i hope to be able to post more frequently...

tulips are blooming all around town right now and i can't help but be a little envious....because of the lack of "life" around our place and because i have no spare time to enjoy early spring activities such as tending to flowers and plants.  i guess i should have thought about this last fall when these little bulbs needed to go in the ground. why didn't i plan ahead and have some of these popping up to say hello to me when i pull into my drive?

however, i did sucessfully "winter" my lollipop gerbera daisies.  well, i kept them alive. now i just have to get them to bloom again....this is them in their prime last summer...

aren't they pretty?  i LOVE the color.  anyway, the repairs are done in our house but neither of us have had any time to actually put the house back together and there is this stubborn, obnoxious "dust" all over the place now (from the sheetrock or something??) and it just moves around when you try to sweep/dust. fun! i'm so ready to breathe some life back into the homestead once april 15th gets here. i did see it's fern selling time at kroger so maybe i'll go ahead and buy my two for this year and get them up on the front porch.  quick fix for the meantime!