12 Years of Marriage and the Anniversary Card That Doesn't Make Sense.

Today is Lazy Dad and my Anniversary.

12 years of twists, turns, ups, downs, highs, lows.  You know, the kind of roller coaster ride every marriage has.

This morning I woke up to find a sweet little surprise waiting for me in the kitchen.  And by sweet, I mean SWEET! 

A 12 pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  Mm, mm.

(12 pack... get it? 12... for 12 years of marriage?)

(Okay, I'll be honest, it didn't dawn on me until I called him to thank him for it.)

(What? Sometimes I'm a little slow, but Jesus still loves me.)

(So there.)

So I called him to thank him for the 12 pack of sweetness, but I also called him to razz him a little bit. 

You see, the card he got me?  Um, I don't think it makes sense.  I read the front.  Read the inside.  And uh, didn't get it (again, I'm sometimes a little slow, but Jesus still loves me, remember?).

So I'm thinking to myself, "Self! Why don't I get this card?  I don't get the punch line.  Something seems weird here."

And then I realized, it's because (in my opinion) the card was meant for a wife to give to a husband! NOT for a husband to give a wife.  And so I laughed to myself, "Self! That's funny!"

So yeah, I called to razz him about that.  (But just a little... it is our anniversary after all.)

But as the razzing commenced, Lazy Dad stood his ground.  HE believes the card is totally meant for a husband to give to a wife. 

He even threw in another man's opinion... a fella he was with when he picked the card out totally thought the card was perfect for him to give me. 

*I* still think it's meant to be given the other way around.

So I said to him, "Well, this just showcases how different we think!" and we both chuckled. Because, okay, if you haven't learned to embrace your differences after 12 years of marriage, good luck to you! Plus, that's just funny.

And so, my dear lazy moms, I need your help.  (You didn't think you'd get out of this, did you?)

What say you?

Does this anniversary card make sense from a husband to a wife?  Or from a wife to a husband?  (Or maybe both??) Help us out!

The front:

The inside:

Okay, even just reading that again, I still think this is a card meant for a wife to give a husband!  What do you think???

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Peanut Butter Pretzel Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies {A Lazy Mom Recipe}

It's LAZY MOM RECIPE TIME!

And I had a bit of a hankering for something sweet.  And naughty.  And yummy.

You feeling me?

So pull out your lazy mom aprons and dust yourself with flour so you looked like you slaved on these little beauties all day, but you really didn't. You know, cause I only share recipes so easy even a lazy mom can do it!

This recipe was submitted by Jaime at Mom's Test Kitchen, who has declared this recipe lazy even though the title isn't.  (Check out her blog sometime.  It's super cute!)


Peanut Butter Pretzel Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 package chocolate chip cookie mix
1 egg
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwiches (Jaime uses Snyder's of Hanover)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a large baking sheet.
2. Mix together the butter, egg and cookie mix until a soft dough forms.
3. Scoop out a large tablespoon of the cookie dough and make an indention in the middle.
4. Lay the pretzel sandwich on top of the cookie dough.
5. Top with another spoonful of cookie dough, making sure to seal the sides around the pretzel.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden brown.
7. Allow to cool for a minute on the baking sheet and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Oh yeah baby!  Come to mama!!!

Thanks for sharing your lazy recipe with us Jaime!  If you have a recipe that's lazy, learn how to submit it to me and share away!

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The Latest Hotel I Want to Move Into {I haven't found one that will take me yet}

On Tuesday our family made the 2 hour drive over to Cleveland to hang out for the day and take in our very first Indians game!

While we were downtown, we had the fun opportunity to check out one of the most unique hotels I've ever seen, the Hyatt Regency Cleveland at The Arcade.

This hotel is housed in a registered historic building called The Arcade, which, you shopping ladies will like this, was the very first indoor shopping mall in 1890!

The two lower floors house shops and hotel amenities, while the upper floors are now hotel rooms!

The historic store-fronts are still intact, complete with mail slots from yesteryear.  

I just loved the old clocks (that still work!) in the middle of the mall.

And I could totally picture women in Victorian era clothes milling around this shopping center.

But our REAL reason for stopping by this amazing hotel was to visit their restaurant!

We were invited to experience Hyatt's new kids menu made for kids, by kids!

Lazy moms! Have you heard about this, yet?!

I was SUPER impressed with the healthy menu items that were presented in a kid-appetizing way!

Shaken Chopped Salad and Salad K-bobs.

The Shaken Chopped Salad comes in a salad shaker right to the table!  It allows you to add as much or as little dressing as you want and then shake, shake, shake it up!

Of course the kids thought that was pretty cool.  (And okay, so did I!)

Plus the salad (and the healthy yogurt basil dressing) tasted ah-mazing. 

The Chef then delivered their totally yummy and addictive Sunbutter, Jelly and Banana Sandwich.

Have you heard of Sunbutter?  It's a peanut-free, healthy peanut butter alternative.  AND IT ROCKS.

I don't even like peanut butter and jelly (together) but this was awesome.

Sunbutter, Jelly and Banana Sandwich

The new kids menu also offers a Build Your Own Whole Wheat Sub Sandwich.  We found this meal to be the biggest and the most bang for your buck.

Build Your Own Whole Wheat Sub Sandwich

PLUS! It comes with the cutest little bottle of mayo known to man.

Hewwo whittle mayo! You're just so cute and whittle!

And I may or may not have asked the chef to wash it out for me so I could take it home when we were done with it.

*ahem*

Next up was the Whole Wheat Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs... uh, yum!

Whole Wheat Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs

And do you see that little yummy guy hiding back there in the background of that picture?  Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Natural Beef

Mm, mm. This grilled petite steak with potatoes, roasted veggies and a garden salad was scrumdidlyuptious!

I totally applaud Hyatt for their new healthy kids menu!  They made it fun, fresh and absolutely delicious.  And best of all, I felt great about what my kids had for lunch.  The attention to organic, whole, fresh foods is inspiring! Nothing is fried!

 And their breakfast menu and drink selection is just as great.

Oh yes! We tried that Strawberry-banana smoothie, too!

Strawberry-Banana Smoothies

Oh! And check out what mama had....

Chicken Avocado Quesadilla

AMAZING!!!

Needless to say, I now have a new hotel I want to move into and have them serve me awesome healthy food to me all day.

That's totally doable, right Hyatt?

Hyatt??

HELLO HYATT!

*sigh*

Disclosure: Hyatt generously provided this kids menu taste test for us in exchange for my honest opinion.  No other compensation was received and all opinions expressed are my own.

--
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And Now, Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

I'M BACK!

Although, I am still suffering from some Kids Camp detox symptoms.

Listlessness, Poopedoutedness, Sleeptillnoonness.

But I'm pressing through in order to get this ol' blog back to her regularly scheduled programming.  (Thanks Traci for hijacking my blog holding down the fort while I was gone! YOU ROCK!)

Helping Lazy Dad run Kids Camp for one week every summer is truly one of the highlights of my year. Our state Kids Camp is awesome!  (Which, could be due to the fact that such an awesome group of people run it, but who knows for sure?)

Seeing kids out in God's creation discovering all the cool stuff He made is the best.

And seeing them learn new skills is great.

But above ALL of that, is seeing all these wonderful Ohio kids worship God!

THIS one stole my heart...

*tears*

That's my friend Heather's son. He was so sweet I told Lazy Dad I wanted to take him home with us.

Speaking of Lazy Dad, have I told y'all he drives like a MANIAC on a golf cart?

I feared for my life multiple times last week.

You may remember from last year, how I like to terrorize my boys roommates with "mom hugs" every morning.  It brings me great joy.  And them great terror.

But look at those faces... they secretly *love* it.

Well, maybe not this one.

I had to chase this one around the table, but I caught him!

AHHHHH!

Let's just scroll past that picture, shall we?

My daughter ROCKED the kids choir this year.

Of course, I'm a bit bias.

While you're here, let me introduce you to Pastor Carl.

That's Pastor Carl in pain.

He got his arms waxed because the kids raised over $3,000 for missions.

Poor Pastor Carl.

See those balloons up there? 

Those were for our big "closing ceremonies" balloon drop.

Um, it didn't quite go as planned.

So Lazy Dad, in a moment of awesomeness, jumped off the stage and started ripping open the netting.  Causing mass chaos.

But my favorite picture of Lazy Dad this last week is this one...

He had some of the kids share testimonies about what God was doing in their lives.  It rocked.

So.  That was my exhaustingly fun week.  How was yours?

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All You Need

Traci here, wrapping up this week

filling in for Stacey while she's been enjoying Kids Camp with her family.

I had intentions of doing my last post about another

Dirt Cheap Decor tip, and then throw in

another recipe.

But something happened tonight

that shifted my focus.

My Dad, who is a walking miracle,

was admitted back into the hospital.

Times like these bring your focus back to what

 really matters

real fast!

As I was praying tonight this song came to mind.

I hope you'll take time to listen to it--

and to let go a little bit and just sit with HIM and allow HIM to

speak to you through it.

HE is all you need!

No matter what you're going through.

No matter how tough things are.

No matter how long you've dealt with it.

No matter what the doctors say.
No matter how impossible it seems.

He's all you need.

Blessings to you all.

It's been great hanging out with you this week!

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A Manly Man Cleaning a Bathroom?! {Giveaway}

So I don't know about you, but I HATE to clean the bathroom.  The main thing I hate to clean? THE SHOWER AND TUB!

(Can I get an Amen?)

It hurts my back and it's hard to really get in there and scrub it.

Well, Rubbermaid® must have heard how much I hate to clean my bathroom, because low and behold a package of bathroom cleaning tools landed on my front porch.

The only problem?

I'm not at my front porch.  I'm at Kids Camp this week.

BUT, my good friend Jenilee (who also found herself in this predicament, being that we are at Kids Camp together and all), had a friend who happend to be coming here mid-week, so she brought us Jenilee's package of Rubbermaid® bathroom cleaning goodies.  (Thank you Jenilee's friend!)

And so today, while we were supposed to be doing Kids Camp type stuff. We were instead oo'ing and aw'ing over the stuff we found in the Rubbermaid® package.

THEN, as we oo'd and aw'd, one of our fellow Kids Camp staffers started oo'ing and aw'ing with us.

And uh, this staffer was a man. 

A big burly manly man. 

Who (apparently) was just as impressed with the fun Rubbermaid® goodies as we were.

After eyeing these tools up, he declared to his wife (who was in the room with us) that they should buy themselves some of these things.

Um, hello?! Did anyone just catch that?

*tap* *tap* *tap*

Is this thing on?

A BIG BURLY MANLY MAN JUST SAID HE WANTED TO BUY BATHROOM CLEANING TOOLS!

Stop the presses, people!  That has GOT to be front page news right there!

So since this big burly manly man was so impressed with these tools, I asked him if he'd let me take pictures of him testing them out.

And he was happy to comply.

Well, as long as I gave him "a cut."

Which I happily said yes to.

(Cause, um, I don't get anything to give him a cut of. *tee-hee!)

And away he went!

 

I could hardly get him to stop playing with the Extendable Scrubber!

The pole extends out much further than it's showing here. (I can't WAIT to use it to clean my shower and tub at home! No more bending over! Yay!)

And seeing it bring such delight to a big burly manly man was too funny for words.

This big burly manly man also rather enjoyed the 2-in-1 Scrubber!

You can totally get your scrub on with this scrub brush...

... and then nestled on top of it is a small detail scrub brush!

Viola'!

No more needing to traipse off mid-scrub to go find an old toothbrush to scrub with! 

TOTALLY lazy mom friendly! And, well, apparently big burly manly man friendly as well.

So today, Rubbermaid® would love for one of you dear readers to WIN their new bathroom cleaning tools!  Specifically their new...

• Extendable Scrubber - The Extendable Scrubber helps you clean hard to reach areas such as shower walls, garden tubs and around the toilet.
• Flexible Scrub Brush - This all-purpose scrub brush flexes to get into hard to access areas.
• 2-in-1 Scrubber - This all-purpose scrubber has a detail brush stored cleverly inside that you can pop out to clean those hard to access areas without breaking your cleaning stride.
• And a variety of Switchable Pads. The Switchable Pads work with the Extendable Scrubber and the 2-in-1 Scrubber and include a scour pad, sponge pad, bristle brush, and disposable pads.

How awesome is that???

U.S. residents can enter to win by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can do as many or as little as you would like on the form, but each option you complete is an entry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Want to purchase these items? Find them on Rubbermaid's website or in your local Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Meijer or Target.

Also! Be sure and check out the following blogger's experiences with Rubbermaid's® new bathroom cleaning tools and enter to win on their blogs as well!

Chubby Cheeks Thinks    http://www.chubbycheeksthinks.com
The Tuckers Take Tennessee    http://www.thetuckerstaketennessee.com
Diary of a Stay at Home Mom    http://diaryofasahm.com
Our Goodwin Journey    http://www.ourgoodwinjourney.com
Woven by Words    http://wovenbywords.com
Simply Stacie    http://www.simplystacie.net/
Bargain Briana    http://bargainbriana.com
SusieQTPies Scraps of Life    http://cafescrapper-scrapsoflife.blogspot.com/
Sweep Tight    http://sweeptight.com

Disclosure: Rubbermaid® sent me their new bathroom cleaning tools in exchange for my honest opinion of their products.

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