First off let me start by saying a HUGE thank you for the sweet comments and emails about yesterdays  post. You guys are the best. Really. 
Last week I went to the grand opening of Soybu and had SO much fun with Sarah and the rest of the Mile High Mama's! We sipped champagne, ate delicious cupcakes, tried on outfits and at the end of the night I walked away with  these amazing leggings! I've pretty much been living in them, and I'm absolutely going back to get the same ones in black. So THANK YOU Soybu! (I got store credit for attending but was in no way obligated to blog about them or anything, I just think they are that amazing that you all need to know about them!) 

Sarah did a great job recapping our night if you care to read more!
In Tindra news (no one besides moms will care remotely about this) when we are at home she's potty trained! (Minus nap and night times) it's amazing! I brought out the potty chair about 6 weeks ago but I haven't pushed it at all. Sometimes she would randomly sit on it, other times she acted like  it was going to eat her alive if she even looked at it. The last couple of weeks I've let her have 'naked' time in the morning before we go anywhere, and if she started to pee on the floor I'd just put her on the potty and she'd finish there. But then all of a sudden she started peeing in there herself! And the carrying it to the toilet to flush it as she waves and yells bye to her pee. Normal right? Watching her get excited as she pees in there is about the cutest thing ever; after she's done she stands up and claps for herself and yells yaaay TeeTeeeee! The only problem is the second we put underwear on, all bets are off and she pees in them. She thinks they are diapers, I think because they probably feel similar to her cloth diapers. So we have to suck it up and just put her in underwear, but agh diapers are just so much easier! 
In Jasper news, he (along with his class) put on The cutest most spectacular production of Stone Soup you ever did see. But that deserves a post of it's own! 
In my workout news. I've been doing pretty good getting to the Y 2-4 times a week, just depending how crazy our week is. I was doing the treadmill, but then I decided to try the spin bike one day and I'm hooked! Makes me Super excited for our bike rides this spring/summer. I was getting frustrated that I haven't seen a big change on the scale in the past 6 weeks, but then I found a paper I had written a bunch of measurements down a little over a month ago and I re measured and found out that even though i don't feel like I'm seeing a big change and the scale hasn't changed much at least I have lost several inches in my hips and waist, which is a huge encouragement for me! And then I went and celebrated that by eating half a box, I kid you not, of Girl Scout Tagalongs..so there's that. 
And that's all for now friends! 

Putting myself out there.

I have a terrible time doing that. For some reason I have this horrible fear of rejection. Drew and I were recently having a conversation about that, and he think's it's just crazy that I have this deep fear  since I've never even really be rejected. It's not meant to sound 'braggy' by any means, but it's how it is. I was never rejected by some guy, or girls, I was never on the outside of some group I wanted to be a part of. I fit in. If I wanted to date a guy, I did. If I wanted to be friends with a certain person, I was friends with them. Besides a brat in 4th grade who made fun of my ear on my first day of school in America, I was never mocked or ridiculed. All things that would naturally make someone fear rejection, I never had. It doesn't make sense that I'm like this. That I don't ever want to put myself out there for fear or rejection or failure. But it's just how I am. I'm not shy, I just don't put myself in situations, if I can help it, where I am setting myself up for possible failure or rejection. 
I don't go up to a group of women talking at the park or school or some social situation and join in on the conversation. What if they wonder what the hell I'm doing joining in on Their conversation?
I don't invite someone over for brunch or coffee unless I'm positive they will say yes. What if they said no, the horror. 
I don't tell people 'in real life' about this blog. How silly they would think it is. 
I haven't told many people in my life that I have this passion for photography that I actually want to DO something about. What if I fail? I wouldn't want anyone to know that. 
Until now. My big goal for this year, is to put myself out there. Not be afraid or rejection. Or mockery. Or silent judgement that is sure to come. Just to be myself. And a big step in doing this for me is sharing what I've been working on for the past 10-11 months. My photography. I don't know what will come out of it. And that's okay! Maybe it will turn into a successful photography business. Or maybe nothing will come out of it. Or maybe it will continue how it's been for the past 6 months, a  photo shoot here and there. Any of those outcomes is okay, but being afraid to put myself out there is not. 
If you care to take a look (and like!) I would very much appreciate it, especially if you are local! 
DarleneLynn Photography
Regardless it feels good just to get it out! 

Valentines

I was never a huge Valentine person. Sure it was a fun(isn) holiday, but it also always seemed like unnecessary pressure. Sure I had boyfriends that went out of their way to make V-day special, but my fondest memories of Valentines day involve my parents. My dad sending me flowers to school. My mom being up and setting up special candy and cards out for us before I ran out the door for early morning choir practice. The year I got a wooden heart shaped sign from my favorite local artist. Thats what made it special. Even my freshman year of college my mom made and sent me a Valentine care package. 

This was my 7th year celebrating Valentines day as a mother and I've got to tell ya, it just gets better and better! Picking out little goodies to surprise them with is always my favorite. I absolutely Love buying things for them, but I don't want them to grow up expecting everything and becoming spoiled rotten so I try not to go overboard!

This year for Valentine's day I stayed up late after book club baking red muffins and getting their goodies set up, and for once I had to wake Jasper up! The look on his face when he saw his red breakfast and table full of Valentines surprises, priceless. Those little moments, make every hard parenting moment a billion times worth it.

After breakfast Tindra, Jasper and I headed to starbucks to get his teachers their favorite Starbucks drinks (I did a little detective work earlier this week to find out their favorites) and then headed to Jasper's school party. Getting to be a part of school party as an adult, is so much better than doing it as the the student! No one ever told me how much fun this part as a parent was!

Tindra and I then surprised Drew with some lunch at work, and she went around his office charming the pants off of everyone around. We are in trouble with her.

After school (there was an incident, I'll share more later, probably) we headed to a Valentines party with Swedish school friends where we made heart shaped pizzas and I brought heart shaped red velvet cupcakes. Then after the kiddos went to bed Drew and I watched a romantic comedy and snacked on fancies cheeses and crackers. 

All in all, a most perfect 14th of February. 

"I would love to know about how you and Drew met and fell in love. I'm a sucker for a love story!"

Asked by Maria.

I posted here about how we met and our first (super awkward) kiss. And since yesterday was the anniversary of our first official date (9 years ago!) it felt like a good time to consider that saga. 
So fast forward about 2-3 weeks from that awkward kiss and Drew texted me that he liked me. 
I don't think I responded to it. Bitchy huh? But I didn't know what to say! I was sort of seeing this other guy at college. Except not really since he was gone and I was still in high school. But Still. I wasn't looking for any sort of relationship. It was 5 months before I graduated and then I was heading off to Northern Iowa. And he had committed to going to college in Denver (12 hours away from where I was going to be.)
But he was persistent. 
He started bringing me lattes to work. He worked just down the street from where I worked and he got off at 5:30 and I didn't get off till 6 so he would bring me a carmel latte (the way to my heart) and offer to drive me to play practice.
Oh yeah starting that January we were cast as two of the leads in our senior school play who just happened to be 'boy friend/girlfriend' in the play. Convenient. So we had play practice 3-4 days a week from 6-10 PM so we spent a lot of time together. And I started to return those feelings. 
We kept is secret for a while. I'm not really sure why, but I didn't really want our group of friends to know. We had all been such good friends, I didn't want to mess up the group dynamics by announcing 'Oh hey, were a couple.' Or something like that. 
I think the first time we 'came out' of the secret relationship closet was spring break about a month later. I had spent the week before spring break in Hawaii on a cruise with my sister, and when I got back my mom was in North Carolina with my little brother if I recall correctly, so I threw a little party for some friends (sorry mom..) and by the end of that night, well everyone knew. And apparently no one was surprised. We must not have been doing as good job of keeping it secret as I thought.
I still refused to call him my boyfriend though. I didn't want anything serious. But when you accidentally fall in love with your very good friend, it's bound to happen. 
We were pretty much inseparable from the start. We did everything together. He became my absolute best friend. 

And that's enough for now! I'm going to try to dig up some of those old play pictures! 

Pinterest Party!

A couple of weeks ago Kym threw a pinterest party for a few local bloggers and me being probably the least crafty person Ever was a bit terrified of what I was going to make. Luckily Kym saved me from showing up with toilet paper rolls and popsicle sticks and introduced us to Darby Smart. Darby Smart has a bunch of different cool DIY's like jewelry, candle holders etc. and you pick one and they send you literally Everything you need! That is my kind of a DIY party. Plus Kym makes a kick ass BBQ pizza...

 Having an automatic timer try to take a picture of four girls isn't the easiest thing.. 

Hannah Kym Alexes (not pictured Sami) 

Oh that's just the prince of Sweden..

Hugging my cousin!
I guess I should back up. One of my cousins in Sweden (dad's brother's oldest son who is a couple years younger than I am) is an extremely talented chef. And on Friday he won Sweden's Chef of the year! It's a televised competition, sort of like Top Chef, and he won! I think he's the youngest to win but I could be wrong on that. Awesome huh? As I was watching the youtube video my uncle posted I was thinking the guy presenting the award looked familiar. Took me about 30 seconds to realize that it was the FREAKIN PRINCE OF SWEDEN! Who I am sort of in love with. Amazing! Let me tell ya, I have some ridiculously talented chefs in my family, my dad and all three brothers are extremely talented as well. So it's a men thing in my family. I'm going to have to force him to cook me a meal when we visit in June!

Friday Randoms

Because I've had one too many cups of coffee so my brain is alllllll over the place. Which is unlike me. Not.  1.This week has been sort of hell. It's been in the negatives every day, I'm just today getting over a horrible horrible cold (possibly the worst of my life), Drew was in Arizona for work, Tindra came down with a cold and was super stuffed up which meant she was up for the day by FOUR AM. Yeah it's been rough. But it's Fridaaaaay!
2.Drew and I are going to go out tonight with his boss, who I have never met. Could be awkwaaard. We shall see. But at least I get to stuff my face with delicious Italian food. 
3.I decided to try a spin bike because I still dont feel 100% myself after my cold and holy hell my ass hurt! But I'm pretty sure it went numb halfway through and I couldn't feel pain anymore. Also 35 min on there burned 450 calories! I may never step foot on a treadmill again. 
4.I've never done yoga. I took a class once and it was a bunch of 70 year olds that were more in shape than I've ever been. BUT I desperately want to be able to do yoga. It looks so relaxing! So last night Jasper and I found a 20 min youtube class, and I must have had a super easy one because it was totally doable! New goal, do yoga every day for 20 minutes for a month. 
Okay that's all I've got! Have a great weekend!

Question: Answered

Question: Ok I have two! How long have you and your husband been together? And my second question, do you guys want more kids? And did you like the age difference between the two? Ok I guess that was three questions!

Answer: Drew and I have been together for 9 years next week (holy cow!) but I'll talk more about that later. And I absolutely want more kids! When that will be I don't know, but I come from a big family and have always wanted a big family myself. Jasper and Tindra are over 4.5 years apart. They are really close and I love the age gap between them. I think the next one I would like to maybe have a little closer in age, but for what was going on in our life, the age gap was perfect. I absolutely love that I got almost five whole years just Jasper and I. And he started kindergarten when Tindra was 4 months old so I have had lots of one on one time with her also which has been amazing. Sometimes I wish Jasper had a brother or sister closer in age to play more with, but I know as they get older they will only get closer and have more fun together! 

My broncos lost...But

At least now I can say I've slept in the same bed as a a Super Bowl winning quarter back, yeah? As I announced last night on Instagram, Seattle's quarter back lived with my aunt and uncle one summer a few years ago and stayed in their guest bedroom. So since I have also slept in the same guest room many times (not that summer) we have slept in the same bed. So that makes it a little bit easier to deal with Bronco's loss last night. A little bit. Also, my aunt and uncle are in love with him and have been saying for years what a nice boy he is, and how lovely his (now) wife is so there's that at least. At least we didn't lose to Tom Brady and the Patriots, because Brady and his wife I am Not a fan of. 
And that's probably the most sports talk you will hear from me in a while. Except to talk about my own kids games, because come on, that's actually interesting. Oh and the olympics. I'm a big big fan of the Olympics.