For Valentine’s Day this year, the hubby and I bought a Living Social deal for a weekend away at the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago. We actually go to Chicago a lot, but in the eleven years (eleven years??) since we met we really haven’t taken the time to walk through memory lane to all the places we used to spend time when we were first dating.

I have told our story of meeting a few times, but in case you don’t know it, we met at church in Chicago and soon realized we lived in the same building. So this weekend we went back to that building, walked hand in hand down the streets and went to one of our favorite restaurants from our early dating. We pretended we were 25 again instead of *mumble mumble* (yes I realize if you even paid remote attention in this post, you can do the math).

I don’t know who those crazy kids thought they were, getting engaged after knowing each other 4 months. But we knew, and I haven’t regretted that decision for even second. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Love you babe!

Very unflattering picture of us staring into the sun in front of the building where we met.

My daughters are girly girls and because of that they believe there is only one appropritate hair style for girls. Long. And while long is cute in Tangled, long is not cute in the morning when I am trying to come through a mess of bed head while my girls screaming like I am sawing off their arms. I was growing tired of my children looking like well dressed hobos, but we were rolling with it because they begged me to keep their hair long.

My mother on the other hand was having no more of it. Whenever she was around the girls she could coax them into letting her braid their hair so that it was a bit more presentable. I would have done the same, but I have no idea how to make little girl’s hair cute besides putting some sort of barrette in it. Seriously, God is just laughing at me giving me girls.

Frankly, Hannah can pull of the long hair a bit better. It has some curl to it and is a bit thinner so the tangled mess doesn’t appear quite so tangled and messy. But Lily’s hair was becoming a mess and she was starting to gradually resemble cousin It.

My mom, knowing how Lily is HIGHLY motivated by money asked me if I minded if she offered Lily a $10 “bribe” in order to get her to cut her hair. As long as it wasn’t my money I was all for it. So I asked Lily one more time if we could please go get her hair cut into a cute bob. She adamantly refused. Then I asked her if she would get her hair cut for $10. She told me to make the appointment for later in the afternoon.

So I made an appointment for both girls to get their haircut the next day and we talked through potential styles and how much should get cut off. Suddenly Hannah pipes up and asks why she should have to get her hair cut if she wasn’t getting any money. Her little four year old self asserted herself and said, “I want $10 too.”

And that my friends is how I ended up with two little girls with adorable, very manageable bobs. And how my mom ended up $20 poorer.

This post is linked up to Amy’s Finer Things. Because negotiating is definitely a Finer Thing.

I so hope that if you are a blogger you have had the privilege of meeting and knowing Casey of Moosh in Indy. I remember very vividly the first time I met her right down to the clothes she was wearing (mustard colored dress by Shabby Apple). And I mean that in the least, creepy stalkerish way. I remember because I was a newbie at Blissdom two years ago and boldly tweeted from the opening session, “Ok, I’m here, who do I need to meet?” and I look up to see Casey waving from across the room. I am so glad I met her and here are ten reasons why.

1. The girl loves herself some karaoke. So we are kindred spirits like that. She nails Redneck Woman and rocks some cowboy boots while doing it. (p.s. totally stole this picture from her blog….don’t tell)
2. She writes fearlessly. Seriously, I marvel at her bravery with the written word. Her posts about her struggles with infertility and depression will rock you to your core. This one in particular just blows my mind. So very brave.
3. She doesn’t drink, but parties like nobody’s business. Seriously, search a flickr stream and if there is a bloggy party to be had, she will be in the center of it. The girl is a walking good time. And I mean that in the purest most possible way
4. She is the most amazing photographer. Rarely have I seen her without and camera in hand to capture the most fun pictures. But this one where she managed to capture her BFF’s joy at holding her newborn son takes my breath away.
5. Despite struggling with infertility for years Casey is pregnant with an amazing miracle of a baby girl. Which makes me smile huge just typing it.
6. And she ROCKED that baby bump at Blissdom this year waddling her way out on the floor for the most amazing flashmob ever. I can always find myself in flashmob videos by looking for Casey then looking directly left. I LOVED seeing her get her dance on next to me. It made the flashmob even more fabulous.
7. 
8. She is gorgeous inside AND out. She not only pulled off this amazing vintage look for the BowlHer 09 party, it scored her tickets to see Project Runway. I pretty much followed her around all night that night trying to bask in the gloriousness that was that dress.
9. She pimped out my blog series about sex once on her blog (I loved her post) and my traffic that day took me to a very happy place. Seriously, my little traffic graph had a very nice spike in it. P.S. Casey, you can do that weekly and I won’t be mad at ya.
10. She is such an amazing friend to bloggers everywhere that Emily, her BFF and also awesome blogger from Design Her Momma, had no trouble wrangling up a whole gaggle of bloggers to love bomb Casey with 15 weeks of posts celebrating her. I am really honored to be one of them.

Your job is to help me celebrate. If you know Casey, I would love it if you would leave a word of two telling her why she is worth celebrating. I gave you ten little nuggets of inspiration because I’m a giver. Speaking of givers, Emily is also hosting a giveaway post on her blog every Saturday for baby Mozzi. Casey and a commenter will both be gifted something fabulous so check that out as well.

Thanks Casey for being such a bright corner of the internet. P.s.s. please bring baby up north with Emily when you pop her out. I need some baby snuggles ASAP.

This post is linked up to Top Ten Tuesday at Oh Amanda.

Let me just start this post with the ugliest of confessions. I have not been to the dentist in a really long time. A really, really embarrassingly long time. And I liked it that way. I dread the dentist because I am not one to take the greatest care of my teeth and I live in fear that it is going to come back to haunt me.

My kids were at a dentist appointment in October and I was preaching the virtues of regular dental cleaning when the hygienist asked me where I go. Um……totally busted in front of my kids. Touché dental hygienist/master of manipulation. Touché.

So I immediately made an appointment out of guilt to get my teeth cleaned. Or I completely ignored the guilt and pretended I forgot. But THEN, we discovered we had a bunch of money left in our FSA. Money that had already come out of the paycheck and would go to waste if it wasn’t spent. I helpfully suggested Botox and lipo to my hubby but he countered with me going to the dentist. How is that a good counter offer??

So in desperation I made an appointment. For this morning. And about Tuesday of this week I began to dream up ways to get out of said appointment. Snowpacolypse tried to help me out but came one day too early. Stupid blizzard. Actually I am not mad about that because I also had an appointment to get my hair colored today and I would have driven right through the blizzard to make that happen. Mama had some bad roots.

ANYWHO- I made it to the dentist today. And despite the *mumble, mumble* years since I had been to the dentist, it wasn’t so bad. Well the horrid scraping of tartar was awful, but the rest, not so bad. The dentist even told me I had lovely teeth and gave me a “Good Job!” He really has no idea how poorly I take care of my teeth. That will be my (and the entire internet’s) little secret.

I owe my fabulous teeth to some awesome genes, my rock star Sonicare, and an apple a day. I read somewhere that eating one is like brushing your teeth. I am counting on that being a fact. Flossing and brushing three times a day is so overrated. I will now duck while you throw things at me.

 This post is linked to Finer Things Friday at Amy’s Finer Things.