Fun Rut - Themed Date

My turn for the anti fun-rut date... and I tricked Micah the same as he did for me too. I left him a clue though...

Fun huh?? ;)

I have been super busy working and prepping for our upcoming cruise, so I used Pinterest for a little inspiration for my date.

One fun idea that we have never done before is a themed date night. I saw the idea online and just loved the spontaneity of it!

The example I found used the movie "Serendipity" for their theme. I had never seen it but after hunting it down on YouTube & reading up a little I knew just what I was going to do. 

The movie shows the couple bumping into each other while Christmas shopping, then they again kinda bump into each other eating ice cream, and then go ice skating together. 

So I embellished the date a little and drove us over to the ever-glamorous Walmart. Micah (who still had no idea what we were doing) asked if we were playing "people of Walmart" hahaha!

I parked the car & played the movie's trailer for him on my iPhone & explained that we were going to be copying the basic idea of the movie.. With a little added fun. So at Walmart, our goal was to buy ingredients to make dinner. I gave him a little list of what to buy and told him to pretend to bump into each other while shopping, & to sneak a little gift for the other person. It could range from socks, to magazines, to gum, or really anything. Just as a fun little mini splurge item that was under $5. 

We walked into Walmart & split! I'm not gonna lie, that was such a fun random thing to be walking through Walmart & be on the hunt for Micah.  The cute thing about the movie theme date was the person on Pinterest made such a good point.. Saying in movies you see the couple meet and you know they are meant to be together, you know when the husband meets his wife. But in our lives, the real love stories, when we are single and out on dates or at a party, how strange is it to think back to the time you first laid eyes on your husband? Or the first time you two spoke? How intense was your conversation, how quickly was your sense of humor and good rapport established? 

The whole point to this New Year, New Dates "anti-fun-ruts" is to reconnect, to make sure we don't forget or lose those inside jokes, the closeness, & the love and friendship we knew before we became parents. 

So after a few minutes of running around Walmart, we "bumped" into each other and checked out. 

Since it was so cold outside, I wasn't worried about the food getting gross. Be sure if you do this date in the summer you don't buy food that's time & temp sensitive. 

From classy Walmart, we went over to grab some ice cream at Marble Creamery in the District -- highly recommend, by the way. It was pretty affordable (surprising being at the District) and dashed back to our car to drive to the ice skating rink. 

I found an ice skating rink that was free... It only cost $2 a person for the shoe rental in West Jordan (the specific address is: 1600 West Towne Center Drive). To be honest it was a little crappy but still really fun to skate around with Micah. We hadn't been ice skating since the first month or two we were dating.. About 5 years ago! Crazy how much time can pass.. So it was really fun to get to play around just the two of us. Micah is ridiculously good at just about every sport and ice skating is not an exception. He did an amazing cartwheel on the ice & landed it. Kinda legit. 

We unlaced our boots and climbed back in the car to head home for dinner. 

While the oven was heating up we did our gift exchange.. I got Micah the movie Serendipity! It just happened to be on the $5 bin at Walmart. Coincidence? I think not! And Micah got me a Nerf gun! He cheated and went above $5 but it was kinda necessary.. Our friends Maegan & Austin bought Micah a Nerf gun for Christmas and it is frequently used for wartime merriment... But now.. It's war!!!

For dinner we created some lovely Mexican dishes. These are raw tortillas that we cooked in the oven & added lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, cheese, & crunchy tortilla bits with some dressing....

In case you're wondering, these are amazing. 

Once dinner was cooking I popped the DVD into our xbox and watched movie magic! ;) 

And there you have it! A themed date night!

xoxo

Mandi

Life changes

Lots of changes.. some good, some not so good in the Russell household. 

First update:

I quit my job! I was working very briefly with Nebo, selling flashlights from my house. Totally random but I did really like the company. They were very professional, very enthusiastic, & the product was really good too. I just couldn't work the hours that they wanted. They were willing to be flexible and help me out, but truthfully I missed my lazy afternoons with Olive. I missed having totally unproductive days where all I did was feed & play with Livi.. Days where I didn't work off someone else's schedule... Other than my own little bird. ;)

Another semi update: 

Micah and I are still on the car hunt. :/ we sold my Mini Countryman in January and have been soooo back & forth on what we want.. That and we were on our cruise & just kinda put it off... But now I'd like my own car again haha. 

And for the saddest update:

As some of you may know I've been serving in my church with the youth (12-13 year old girls), in charge of teaching on Sundays and mutual activities on Tuesdays.. I was released today. 

My young women's president is moving to Singapore so they are switching a ton up... It was a small potential but truthfully I was shocked that I was released. I had only been in young women's for 6 months, just starting to really fall into the groove and have the girls genuinely open up with me. So my new calling is in the relief society, on the activities committee... And honestly I have really mixed feelings about the change. I'm beyond sad about leaving young women's... Have cried a stupid amount over it... And yet on the other hand I'm also excited to get to know the women in my church, make new friends & get to know my neighborhood more. 

I know that there are no coincidences in life, so I am just going into this whole heartedly, trying my best to stay positive & trust the Lord. 

Tonight Micah and I watched the walking dead & cuddled up with my little bird. I think she knew I needed some extra loves today. 

xoxo 

Mandi

Fun Rut - Ice Castles

This post is super late.. no judging!

So to start the year of rut kicking off, Micah took the first date (here's what rut I'm talking about). He kept it a secret and planned out the whole thing without telling me anything. Even kept me guessing on our way to the date! Little stinker.

Up Parley's Canyon we went to Park City, to eat on Main Street at Wasatch Brew Pub. It has a fun ambiance, definitely like a sports bar. We got the chips and salsa appetizer.. super yum by the way.

After dinner we headed up to Midway for the Ice Castles. It was $10 for each of us and totally worth it! We obviously went at night and got to enjoy the cool neon lights they had throughout the sculptures. I wore boots but not grippy enough... the ice was melting and made the ground super slick! I just about ate crap a few times and passed Liv off to Micah so if I went down I didn't take her with me.

It was so great to walk around the ice with my two favorite people and to check out the amazing art that water can do. Seriously impressive. It makes me think about the hotels that are sculpted out of complete ice that you can stay in and kinda freaks me out. Crazy cool.

Next month is my month to kick our ruts to the curb.  ;)

xoxo

mandi

Anti-Fun-Rut

Do you ever feel like you've sorta fallen into a comfortable rut? Not an unsatisfied rut, but just sort of happily doing the same thing, whether it be with your job, or friends, or dating... Well Micah and I fell into a fun-rut. We started getting really good at going to movies whenever we had a date night because we would so frequently miss the big blockbuster release because of our darling babe. So our date night routine became dinner with friends or family, then a movie. Or a movie and ice cream. These dates were still fun, but it was a fun-rut. I absolutely loooove movies so I still really enjoy those kind of dates. But I want to do things a little differently in 2014. 

I want to go on more dates, take more pictures together, and do things that aren't movies! When Micah and I were dating we did some seriously fun, random, and adventurous date nights, as I'm sure many people did. I want to bring back some of that spark of newness and really not lose ourselves in parenthood. I've never been more in love with Micah than I am now & the moment we first became parents and he held Olive for the first time was absolutely magical. I'll never forget that. He's the best husband and father I could ever ask for and dream up and I don't want to forget our lives together before baby. 

So, to do that I didn't want to set an impossible goal for ourselves or rule out movie nights all together. 

My anti-fun-rut idea is to do something different, one weekend a month, and dedicate it solely to doing something new, that Micah and I have never done before.  They don't have to be crazy expensive, but they do have to be different ideas than we've never done before. Also, I decided to put my phone away and treat these dates as first dates again. Really be together in the moment. Maybe snap some pictures but not be checking my emails or Facebook feed. 

One of my favorite things about Micah is his ability to have fun. To genuinely leap into whatever date or trip or activity we're into and to just make the most dull thing exciting. When we were dating we went to Color Me Mine & painted a few porcelain things and it was sooooo fun! I love just sitting and talking with him, he's the best.  :)  I don't want to ever be at a point where we stop having fun & it's my hope that doing these little dates will inject a little frivolity and spontaneity into our days. 

Alright cheese-fest over, I'll post all of our anti-fun-rut dates as we do them. 

xoxo

Mandi

Dates and Updates

Ah January was so busy! It started out boring & blah but definitely picked up.

So where to start.... This may be a long post...

First I got a job! I'm working from home for a really cool company called Nebo. They do flashlights and tools (sounds incredibly random, I know) and are all women! The company is owned by three men who are all strong Christian guys who really value the home and working moms. So it's been really nice when Olive has had a more demanding day, they are very understanding of that. :) if you're curious, go check out their products www.nebotools.net

Micah loves me working there -- free flashlights for him! Such a manly thing right? 

So I started with Nebo in the beginning of January, and honestly I really love the job! It is really hard though, to have to do along with taking care of Olive & clean the house, attempt at cooking... 

Shortly after starting with Nebo, Micah and I went to St. George with Sheridan and Brian and his kids. It was so much fun! Got to spend the weekend with some of my favorite people. :-)

Some pics from the weekend. 

nothing hotter than my hubs rocking the baby bjorn. grrr ;)

Then the following weekend was Sheridan's birthday ... She kinda stole a few weeks that month haha! So Brian arranged a fun little surprise birthday party with some of her closer friends. We went to the Dodo for dinner (super yunmmm) then to LaserQuest for laser tag! Pretty sure we were the oldest people there by like 10 years, no joke. But it was so much fun, I haven't been since I was in high school (ya know like 7 years ago.. I'm so old).  ;)

I got 5th place! I'm midnight shadow of course. ;) or midnitshdo apparently. Woo! And yes, in the zombie apocalypse my skills are for hire. ;)

And they found out it was Sheridan's birthday so they fired her with toilet paper! Incredibly random but Sheridan was a good sport with it. 

Then the last weekend in January Micah and I had the great opportunity to speak in church. Kill me. Ugh. I haven't spoken in sacrament since I was in high school, which as we've covered, was sooo long ago. ;) 

As a last minute procrastination, we went to the U of U gymnastics final with my bro & sis in law Ben & Ali & their girls. 

Livi met Swoop, the U mascot. 

We were on the front row (and on tv a bunch apparently) so we really had an amazing view of them. 

Craaaaazy eye!

Way fun, it's been so long since we've done anything with them, so it was nice to hang out & catch up a little. 

Then the following morning we spoke in church, I tried not to vomit & luckily didn't spew chunks all over the podium. Huzzah! Now hopefully I'm done speaking for a few more years. :)

xoxo

Mandi

Be My Valentine

So Pinterest got the best of me... Again! I couldn't help kiss my little bird all over and document it's pudgy goodness. 

i LOVE this picture of her!

Look at those dimples!!!

happy valentine's day!

xoxo mandi

Janu-blah-ry

Yes, we decided to join the trend of sickies... And I say sick babies not baby because pretty much all of us are sick & afflicted & haven't been out of pajamas much. Even Zoey isn't doing too hot.

Livi got a cold on New Years & decided to share with Micah & I. Either that or we got sick & shared it with her. Blah. Both ways suck. She had a funky wet cough (not croupy thank goodness) and had to be deep suctioned out at her doc's office. FYI if you're in the Herriman/Riverton/south Jordan area you should go to Southpoint Pediatrics. Olive's doctor Dr. Duffy is amazing, seriously so good. And I'm super picky because I worked in peds as an M.A. For 3 years. Anyway, my little bird has an ear infection.  :(

I'm a mean mommy & document her torture. 

Zoey is not doing so hot because she decided to take on a whole herd of deer. Yep, no joke. 

I was painting my chalkboard art in the basement & had the door open so as to not asphyxiate myself.. When Zo thought she needed to protect me & chased after the local deer herd that always creeps around in my backyard. She was doing a good job defending me until a buck charged at her & literally ran her over, jumping ontop of her. :( she got a pretty decent cut on her left knee (either from a rock or the deer's hooves) and all of her paws were bloody. :( I felt so bad! Poor thing was like totally unaffected by it til she tried to lay down... Needless to say, she slept on the bed with us that night. 

My brave little defender resting on "her" boppy. Stinker. 

Some more blah news: we sold my mini. :/ it's good and sad at the same time. Good to obviously pay off our remaining debt on it, but sad because I loved it! 

Last twerk goodbye ;)

Carmax surprisingly enough was a better option than ksl. We even took our bill of sale to low book sales & they cut us a $250 check because they advertise they'll beat any dealer's offer but they couldn't match Carmax's.  :)  win-win for us!

So the new mommy ride is the jeep, my snow leopard. I pulled my "I <3 Moab" sticker off of my mini and put it on my new ride. 

Micah is on the hunt now for a good commuter car.... Fingers crossed we find something!

Xoxo 

Mandi