pancakes and other news

recently i have been eating a LOT of pancakes. and i am not talking your average bisquick pancake. or aunt gemima. or whatever. these are good. whole wheat pancakes with fresh fruit on top and HOMEADE whipped cream. i have eaten these for dinner every night for, roughly, the past week and a half.

(and yes, that is mark's shoulder as he leaned out of the picture. okay, okay, i'm not exactly ansel adams.)

why am i eating pancakes for dinner every night you ask? i am pregnant. :-) okay, i said it. i'm 13 weeks pregnant today. and i have been SICK. i think i'm actually coming out of it now, but the nausea has been the worst at night. mark has been forced to make his own dinners (i.e. stop at wendy's on his way home from work) and i've been eating a lot of plain-tasting stuff. a lot of carbs. a lot of pancakes.

about mark. haha.

hello...it's been a while. i don't have much on my mind, but i'm at work and a smidge bored, so here goes. i'm at work at Bonitz (mark's company)- i am working the front desk here now on Fridays. it goes a little something like this: "Good morning, Bonitz, this is Denise..." for about 6 hours :-)

mark has been a great husband lately. let me give some examples:
the other morning i woke up and i usually sit in our living room and read for a while before i get ready for the day. so i go to the living room and mark had made me a fire in our fireplace before he left for work at 7:30 am! It was one of those cold mornings and it was awesome.

my work schedule now is kind of weird, so i work 10 hrs on wednesdays and i'm off on thursdays. on thursday morning mark called me and asked how i was doing and i said i felt wiped out from the day before. he said "you should just relax today, you worked so hard yesterday. why don't you just read, take a nap, watch a movie, stuff like that." um, yes please. i was expecting him to say something like, "why don't you clean the house?"

he usually lets me park in the garage and he parks in the driveway. but the other night, the night before it frosted bigtime, he parked in the garage and i had to park outside. but the next morning, when i went out to my car i realized he had pulled my car in the garage before he left for work. so the frost was gone and i didn't have to scrape. how kind.

this morning we rode to work together and i had a really bad headache, but as some of you know, i have a hard time swallowing pills sometimes. i know, i'm a grown up and it's kind of ridiculous. but whatever. so i was trying to take a pill with water and i was getting totally frustrated. i was laying back in my seat with my eyes closed saying-
me: do they have chewable tylenol?
mark: what?
me: do they have chewable tylenol?
mark: what?! i can NOT understand you.
me: (screaming now) DO THEY HAVE CHEWABLE TYLENOL?
mark: yeah, they have it for little babies.
me: oh my gosh, i want to die.
mark: (singing now) chillable towel, chillable towel...oh, chillable towel (that's what he thought i was saying all along)
but all that to say, when we arrived at Bonitz he says to me, "i love riding to work with you." and he meant it.

last night we were driving and mark says to me:
did you know that daylight savings used to be in september but the government moved it back so we would go shopping longer?
me: yes, you've told me that fifteen times now
mark: oh, the government should realize it cannot maintain control over the citizens by turning back the hands of time.
me: what? is this like, 'proverbs by mark flanders'?
mark: yes. i think i'll write a book. proverbs by mark flanders.
(later we are at tanner and staci's house and staci says, what are we gonna do if it rains during the marathon)
mark: just receive the rain. you know, receive its showers upon you.
me: is that for your book?

beach trip and new nephew

some pics from our trip to bald head island, a very amazing beach.






why do i include this picture you ask? because mark took this photo and after he took it i asked, "mark, is it good or should we take another?" he looked at the camera and said, "yeah, it's good." i guess it's good, except for our white faces and mel's HEAD BEING CUT OFF.


that's better :-)

and let's welcome to the world our new nephew, noah david flanders:

mark's birthday

so this is a little delayed, but here are some pics from mark's bday.

this is mark receiving his favorite gift, cracklin' oat bran cereal. he is basically forbidden to buy it on a regular basis since it is FIVE DOLLARS a box. but he got at least a month's supply for his birthday.


and this is the cake i made him: chocolate sour cream cake with cream cheese peanut butter frosting. oh yes.suffice it to say, he had a good day.

what does this look like to you?

that's right. it looks like success. "congratulations on all your success, you smell terrific." we have reaped some grape tomatoes this year and now our little green bell peppers are growing! so please invite yourself over sometime for a homegrown, organic salad.

this is our life

Denise: I hate driving the Infiniti. Can you give me my car back please?
Mark: Denise, the Infiniti is a luxury sedan
Denise: Mark, it’s seventeen years old
Mark: When that car was brand new it sold for $40,000!

Mark (looking at a puddle of water on the bathroom floor): so, did you take a shower inside the shower or outside of it this morning?

Denise: Mark, can you do me a favor and taste this brownie and tell me if it’s good?
Mark: What if I don’t want to?
Denise: Is that really a possibility?

Also, two times recently when we were riding in the car together, a song came on and Mark says to me, "this song always makes me think about you." Were the songs gushy love songs? False. The first one is a country song (by Sugarland) that is about a girl whose alarm goes off but she oversleeps, has to go to work with no coffee, no shower and arrives an hour late with two different shoes on. And you should know the second one: “..you’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no…” How exactly does that song describe me? I thought I was the epitome of consistency. ☺

if you see this man..

...run.