Sleep Talking

I need to clarify that this is NOT our bed. It belongs to our niece and  we slept there when we visited.
It just illustrated the story :)

Scene: It is a little after 10pm. Carson has been asleep for a little over an hour and Lindsay has been finishing up homework in the living room. Lindsay goes into the bedroom to retrieve something. Quietly, but Carson still stirs, opens his eyes, and has this conversation: 

Carson: You crazy, girl

Lindsay: (surprised. I was being really quiet, and that comment came from nowhere) What? Why? 

Carson: Because you did it anyway

Lindsay: (sneaking suspicion that Carson's still asleep) Did what?

Carson: It was crazy!

Lindsay: Are you sleeping? What was crazy?

Carson: says something indistinguishable but says it earnestly

Lindsay: (truly mystified) What are you talking about? 

Carson: (sitting up and looking at me, sticks hand out and does some sort of symbol) It just is

Lindsay: (pretty sure Carson is talking in his sleep) Oh really, what is? 

(asks again, thinking maybe he fell asleep)

Carson: The - the peas! (possibly peace. either way, doesn't make sense)

Lindsay: Are you awake? 

Carson: 76, 78! I really wish you'd stop asking me these things! 

Lindsay: Please go back to sleep. 

In case you're wondering, it's not the first time. Once, I came to bed a little late and Carson tried to start an argument about something really strange. In the morning, just as I'd suspected, he didn't remember. It's kind of funny, but also SO strange. 

On the Menu

Little Ones

I love this picture. 

Carson and I work in the church nursery in lieu of Sunday school each week. It started because Carson was helping out with one class and I didn't want to go to a class by myself so I volunteered to be in nursery each week keeping the little kids while their parents are in Sunday school. We have a small group of fewer than 10 kids each week, from newborn to two years old (they split into other rooms for the service). I love it; it's my favorite room. We read books, cuddle, knock over stacks of blocks, slide down the little slide and carry baby dolls by their heads. They're just the right age. 

Sometimes Carson takes over for me when I'm tired. Last week, he did and then we filled in for a couple of people during the service. That's when I took the picture above. The kids love him. LOVE him. Just before this, there was a swarm of four or five of them, climbing over him, trying to wrestle or hand him books and toys.

Webcam

I love pictures. 

My old laptop (I got a new one just before Christmas) didn't have a webcam, so I didn't get to experience these joys on my own. Carson's MacBook has Photobooth which is fun, but I didn't have that capacity on my own laptop so I rarely got to enjoy it (although I definitely took some self-portraits on there). 

Should have submitted this one with the grad school applications

How we use our webcam:

For conversation (Skype!) 

As a mirror (did my makeup in it this morning. there's a real mirror right behind my head.)

To entertain small children while babysitting (even better is recording them and letting them watch. it's magic!)

Taking pictures of ourselves. 

So it's certainly not a necessity, but we (I) have enjoyed it and utilized it often. 

by the way, as to our clothing in these pictures: No, spring hasn't come early (although it's been a pretty mild winter). It's just suuuuper warm inside our apartment so we wear shorts and tshirts. We don't control the heat and we have the blessing of having a too warm instead of too cold place during the winter. It's actually fine because if it gets too hot we just throw open a window. The only real problem is that I'm never dressing warm enough to go outside because our home is so cozy. 

I was telling Carson how blue my eyes looked in the camera. They're usually more gray than blue.

Carson is a nice guy but he can make himself look very much like a creep. He likes to get right in my face and do this creepy look. 

Oh hey, we look normal! 

This is how exciting our life really is. Double chins all around...

He was showing off his muscles to the computer screen so I took his picture, of course.

 

French Onion Soup

Mmm... take a look at that! It's not the best picture (the lighting in our kitchen is pretty bad) but it still looks so good to me. French Onion Soup is one of my favorites, most likely for the cheese and bread, but I love the flavors also. Anyway, my mom shared this recipe with me when I got married, so I thought I'd make it for the first time.

So first, I cut up four large onions. No big deal, except that with onions, it always looks like a big deal. I didn't get my heart broken, I just chopped up onions for soup. Next time, I'll remember to have Carson do this.

Since I didn't want to wipe my eyes with my hands, I put them onto my arm for some relief. Didn't factor in how it would look.

Anyway, I was over it by the time I woke up the next morning.
And thankfully almost over it enough while cooking the onions.

In fact, when the soup was done and I topped it with bread and cheese, my eyes felt just fine.


And a short time later, I feasted my eyes on this and completely forgot about how I felt before. Yum.

Double Cheese French Onion Soup
Courtesy of my mother
Serves eight

You'll need:
4 large onions, thinly sliced and separated into rings
1/4 cup (half a stick) butter, melted
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 10 3/4oz can chicken broth
1 10 3/4oz can beef broth
2 cups water
1/4 cup white cooking wine
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 inch sliced French bread, toasted
8 slices of mozzarella cheese
grated Parmesan cheese

How to:
- Saute onion until tender
- Blend in flour, stirring until smooth
- Gradually add broths, water and cooking wine
- Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes
- Add pepper
-  Place 8 ovenproof serving bowls on a baking sheet (note: my bowls said microwave safe and nothing about the oven but they did just fine)
- Ladle soup into bowls, place bread on top and mozzarella on top of that, sprinkle with Parmesan.
- Broil 6 inches from heat until cheese melts.

Enjoy right away!

Flowers and Easels

One day, Carson came home from work with flowers. 

It was a nothing-special kind of day, which always makes flowers more special. 

Later that afternoon, he told me which dress to wear and how to do my hair. This doesn't really happen regularly, so I was surprised. But it took the guesswork of what to do. 

He also suggested taking a picture before we left at 4:30 (yes, it is that dark at 4:30 here). This was also a surprise. 

The plan was this: Backwards Date. He wanted to go to coffee, then dessert, then dinner. 

We went to the Service Station for coffee. We didn't really want coffee, so we shared a large hot chocolate.  Fun fact: We went to this coffee shop the day after our first date, Moody's Spring Formal. So this was our first ever by-ourselves date spot. Good choice, Carson.

We decided to do dinner next because we knew we'd be much too full if we had dessert first.

Olive Garden was on the menu for dinner. It was SO busy but we got seated right away because there was an opening in the "over 21" area. Carson had the Chicken Marsala and I had Seafood Alfredo. I always intend to get something else, but I can't resist the seafood.

(my teeth really aren't yellow)

After dinner, we went to Coldstone for ice cream. For some reason, Carson thought that they only give you enough ice cream to fit in the cup at Coldstone, so he ordered a large to share. Instant regret. 

We rolled ourselves home, where Carson had something else planned. 

First, he took a picture of us

And then he brought out these mini easels. So cute!

We pulled out my paints and started working. His idea was that we each paint something for the other person.

Our finished paintings. He placed the penny there for size. 

It's probably obvious, but the one on the left is Carson's and the one on the right is mine. 

These are proudly displayed by some picture frames and whenever anyone comes over, Carson directs our guests to look at our works of art. 

This was an excellent date. Eating and creating things are two of my favorite things to do! Even better that we did it together :)

How We Celebrated the Day of Love

Lots of pictures. LOTS. Steel yourself. 

This Valentine's Day was our second that was actually spent together. Our first Valentine's Day as a couple was when we were engaged, but I was in the wedding of two wonderful people that day, 2700 miles away from Carson. We didn't do anything (though he did send some lovely flowers) so last year was the first.

This is what went down on Valentine's Day:

First, I purchased a bag of conversation hearts. I'd seen this idea on other blogs but can't find a specific link. 

This was my original one. You can't see the words very well in this picture but these are dollar store version conversation hearts and those were all the options. Disappointing. So I bought another bag.

And this is what was birthed out of that. It is ridiculous and so corny but that's one of the best parts about Valentine's Day anyway, and I wanted to use as many hearts as possible.

I gave it to Carson before he went to work. He thought it was hysterical and couldn't stop laughing.

 Carson gets up before I do, so he crafted this lovely envelope system. 

At times during the day, I would open an envelope and find the gift intended for that letter. The gifts weren't related to the letters, but they were fun to look for!

This gift was accidentally left on the table the day before. I kept trying to drop hints (because of course I saw it) but he didn't fall for them so I eventually told him that I'd seen one of the gifts.

This was wrapped in the back of the cabinet where I hide things anyway, the cabinet I use and Carson doesn't. I saw it immediately because I went to get a pitcher and there it was. So he told me to unwrap before he left. SO cute! I love owls.

So those envelopes were to be opened at specific times. Which I did.

The first letter was written from the perspective of the first time we met.
No, he didn't write it that day and just save it; he wrote it the other day. But it was sweet.

I found the first gift in the crockpot. 

It was this green mug. 

There are quite a few pictures to go through so I'll show them without words...
The basic idea for each letter though was to go chronologically through our relationship and write letters that were "from" those times. Such a sweet idea!!

These were size 5.5... and I'm a 6.5 or 7. He thought these would fit better. Points for trying. 

And here are the letters and gifts. 

When Carson arrived home at 5:20, I had his gift already waiting.
To recap, this was the process of making the gift... Erica, Molly and I each made one for our guys.

And the only bags that were the right size happened to be baby bags... we promised our husbands that it wasn't some sort of announcement.

Anyway, when Carson opened the baby bag, he knew what it was immediately. "It's a blankie!" (he adds an "ie" sound to a lot of words, not sure why)

It's big; 2.5 yards of fleece. As I type this, it's keeping me cozy and warm. 

After he opened his gifts (there was candy too), we got ready to go. 

We opted for Jimmy Johns because the real restaurants were crowded and expensive that night. We took our sandwiches to the mall food court and ate. It wasn't candlelight and roses, but it was still fun. 

After dinner, we walked to the movie theater to see The Vow. Carson didn't like it because he thinks Rachel McAdams looks like me (I don't see it either) and hated that it looked like I had lost my memory. 

It was a great Valentine's Day!