It's Been A While...

So, it has been a while since I have posted on here.

Life has just gotten the best of me lately.  Plus, after writing about 15 papers for classes the past couple of weeks, I just haven't felt the urge to blog.

I had planned on writing an awesome blog post once a week in November talking about different things I am thankful for, but that just did not happen. So, since it is the week after Thanksgiving, I will write a little bit about the things I am thankful for now.

First, I am thankful for God. I truly have begun to form a relationship with him the past year and am so much happier because of it.  I know I have someone solid to lean upon when times get hard or when I am upset.  I have someone to talk to during happy times and sad times.  As I look around, I can see his work in my life and the world around me.

Second, I am thankful for my husband.  He is an amazing man and I cannot stress that enough.  I know that not many guys would get up and go empty the dishwasher, wash all the dirty dishes, clean the counters, and take out the trash.  That is  just one of the thoughtful things he has done for me the past week.  He is a hard worker, trusting leader, and full of love and giving that he shares with everyone around him.  I am so lucky to call him mine.

Third, I am thankful for my family.  As a child, I was not that close to my siblings.  Now that I am older we are becoming closer and it makes me so happy.  I loved getting to spend such a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family this year!

Fourth, I am thankful for my wonderful In-Laws. I know it is not always the case that people get fully accepted into their spouse's family, but I have been.  I have been welcomed with open arms and truly feel like a part of the family. They go out of their way to include me and make me feel comfortable.  My mother-in-law is such a wonderful woman and even though we cannot communicate with each other well, I feel like we are growing closer every time we visit.

Fifth, I am thankful for my best friends.  There was a time in my life where I was consumed with school and did not make my friends my priorities.  I have now realized that was a mistake and regret not investing in our friendships then.  Now, we are all spending more time together and have grown closer.  I am so happy and thankful for their friendships. (You know who you are.)

Lastly, I am thankful for all of my other blessings.  Things such as a wonderful work including the environment and coworkers, the ability to go to school, the ability to live in a nice home, my dog, good neighbors, my health and my family's health, and so on and so on...

I am a lucky person with so much to be thankful for in my life.

I would like to say a big thank you to all of my family and friends for being there for me through everything.  You are all fantastic and I love you!

Now, some pictures from Thanksgiving!

Family Photo!!

Sisters and Niece :)

My love and I.

Three of my nephews and one of my nieces. 

3 months down!

So, I realized my blog is titled "Me and Mr. C," yet I have not posted about my Mr. in a while. I think it is about time I write a post about him, since he is part of the title of this blog.

Paul and I just 'celebrated'  our 3 month anniversary! We did not really celebrate... On our way home from church I asked him, "Is today the 9th?" He said, "Yup, why?"  Then I said, "It's our anniversary then. Happy 3 months!"  And that was the end of it. Now, I know that you might be thinking, "# months. Big deal..." But let me tell you, the first few months of marriage can be rough! Once you're over the 'honeymoon' period, there can be a lot of adjusting going on.

Now, Paul and I were lucky enough to have known each other for 6 years before we got married.  This means that I knew a few of his quirks and habits already.  Things like how he doesn't always clean up after he makes food (I will admit, I'm guilty of this too sometimes...), the fact that he snores, or that he is a night owl and I am an early bird. Even though I knew a lot of his quirks and he knew a lot of mine, being married just changes things on some level. Your relationship with each other completely changes.

Marriage is really hard. It is probably one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life so far, but it has also been the best! Even though he does have some 'quirks' (like we all do) I love my husband just the way he is. He is truly my best friend and I cannot imagine doing life with anyone else! He is kind, supportive, thoughtful, generous, and hard working.

Our normal smile picture...

(These are pre-pixie cut days.)

Our silly face picture. Paul would make a great 'evil' person in a movie.  

He can move his eye brows really well. Haha.

(Paul doesn't like silly picture much, but I'm changing his ways.)

Recipe: Banana Bread

Overall, I would have to say I enjoy cooking.  I'm not a huge fan of cooking things that take more than 30 minutes or use tons of pots, pans, and dishes to make. I enjoy the kind of cooking where you can throw everything together quickly, pop them in the oven, crock pot, or leave them on the stove and kind of forget about them for a while.

I think this is why I truly enjoy baking.  Usually you can throw the ingredients into a bowl, mix it up, put them in the oven and take them out when the timer goes off.  One of my MOST favorite things to bake is banana bread.

I love banana bread and have fond memories of my mom making it when I was a child.  I loved that I got to have it for breakfast. It was the BEST! When I went off to college and was living in my very own, first apartment I had a hankering for some banana bread so I got on the internet and search for a recipe.

Bad plan.

Even though the recipe's title was "Delicious Banana Bread" (or something along those lines), it was not very good. It was not as moist or as flavorful as my mom's recipe is. So, what did I do next? Took pictures of my mom's recipe and saved them on my phone so I could make the BEST banana bread whenever I want.

My favorite thing about this recipe, is when you are searching for it in her cook book it is easily found because the page is extremely worn and stained from being used so much.  It shows how much my mom has made it throughout her lifetime.

So, I wanted to share this recipe with whomever reads this blog, because it is so good.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons salad oil
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup ripe mashed bananas (2-3 medium bananas)
Optional:
1 cup nuts

My mom also likes to add chocolate chips. However, I am not a huge chocolate fan so I omit those. But, I know many others love chocolate chips, so add those to your hearts desire!

* Tip: A tip from my mom. When you are adding the bananas keep them in the peel and mush them up before taking them out. Then you can just take an end off the banana and squeeze them out and they will be mashed already.

Instructions;
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan (or mini loaf pans. I love my mini loaf pans!)

Measure all ingredients into a large mixing bowl; beat on medium for 1/2 minute (or by hand until everything is combined if your me and are too lazy to get out your hand mixer)
Make sure the sides and bottom get thoroughly combined.

Pour into pan(s).

Bake 55-5 minutes or until you can insert a toothpick into the middle and it comes out clean. (No sticky dough residue on the tooth pick.) This is an important step because I have under baked banana bread before.

Remove from the pan and enjoy!!

Baking ( A little over half done, I'd say.) See my mini loaf pans!? So great for sharing with neighbors, friends, or coworkers!

Mmmm! Done! It looks SO GOOD! Makes me want some now. 

(These pictures were from a few weeks ago.)

One crazy week!

So last week was a bit busy, to say the least.

Between classes and work I was one tired girl.

I had work training, practicum hours, a field trip at work, working the for Wednesday night at the church, and more work training.

Out of all of these things, the field trip to the pumpkin patch was the most exhausting, but fun. It is EXTREMELY stressful taking about 15 3-5 year olds on a field trip. Thank goodness everything went well and everyone had a great time!

This weekend was filled with time spent with good friends.

Friday, I spent a fun evening with my best buddy, Farren.  Then her and her hubs and me and my hubs went out for Halloween.  We did not dress up, but I kinda wished we had. It would have been fun and we would have fit in more.

Saturday was a lazy day filled with sleeping in, light cleaning, cookie making, and then a pizza and movie night with the Morris's. I am so grateful for wonderful friends!

We got to spend Sunday afternoon and evening with my parents, which was awesome. We haven't been down to see them in a long time and they will be travelling soon. It was good to see them since the next time we will be seeing them is Thanksgiving!

Paul and I both agree that we need a weekend with just us.  We have realized that being extroverted is exhausting and we have been doing a lot of that lately.

With hunting season coming up, I don't know when the next weekend we will be able to spend just the two of us (and our dog), but I can't wait until we do!

I'm grateful for my wonderful husband, great friends, and that this week is going to be much less busy than the last (knocks on wood).

Halloween fun

My friend, Farren, invited me to go to the mall with her last Friday evening. I thought this sounded like an awesome plan! As she was coming to pick me up, she called me.  She forgot that she had agreed to go to a corn maze with her husband and some friends, but she wanted me to come with them.

Now, I am an introvert, and proud of it.  I have been doing a lot of extroverting the past couple of weeks and let me tell you, it's exhausting. I wanted to say "No, I'll just stay home, read, and watch Mad Men." But I didn't. I agreed.  (Side note: Mad Men did not interest me at first, but after watching 4 seasons, I'm hooked.  It's a pretty good show, however, it is filled with a lot of "adult subjects."  The show may not be for everyone.)

She told me it wasn't a scary one, so I thought, "What's the harm?"

We carpooled with one of their friends and as we were driving there I hear Dayton, her husband say, "I'm going to be so scared tonight."

I looked over at Farren and yelled, "You liar!"  I am a big chicken and HATE anything scary.  I refuse to watch scary movies or go to haunted houses.

Well, I was committed because the (haunted) corn maze was an hour away and we were already almost there.

I was extremely anxious to start this corn maze.  But, after the first 20 or 30 minutes, I realized it wasn't so bad.  Just people in masks that jump out of the corn at you.  We had a pretty big group and I stationed myself in the group so I was the least likely to be the one who encountered the 'haunters' first.

In the end, I had a fun time and met a bunch of new people.

Sometimes it is good to do things that you wouldn't normally do- especially if it scares you.

I felt very accomplished because I faced my fears.

The next day the Mr. and I made our way to his mother's house. My parents were gracious enough to drive to Springfield to pick up our dog to dog sit for the weekend.  His mother doesn't allow indoor animals and CC wouldn't fare well outside all weekend long.

While in Sedalia, we not only spent time with his mom, but we went to our friend's family's Halloween party.  This party includes friends, family, food, hayride and haunted house.

After the haunted corn maze, I skipped going through their haunted house.  One scary thing per week is my new rule.

I love this Halloween party.  Paul and I have been going to this family event since we started dating, so going always reminds me of fun memories that we share.

Halloween is a fun part of fall, but for Paul there is something more important that happens in the fall.

Hunting.

This man loves hunting.  He gets so excited when he talks about it and works out his strategies of where he plans to put his camera and set up his deer stands. To me it sounds like the Charlie Brown teacher, "Waa waa, waa waa, waa waa..." But I just love seeing his passion show through.  I love hunting because I know it makes him happy, but I don't think I will ever join him.

While in Sedalia we went on a little walk to go check his camera. While out in the fields, I played with my, I mean our, new camera.  I got some pretty cool pictures. At least I think they are cool.  I enjoyed figuring out more about my, I mean our, camera for future use. I also got to take some pictures of the animals Paul's camera caught.

I had a wonderful weekend full of extroverting.  Now, I am glad for a few nights to spend by myself, being an introvert with a book and Netflix.

3 does

Turkey

A Coyote.

And a buck.  Paul was as giddy as a 6 year old on 

Christmas morning after seeing this on his camera.

I walked not even a foot into some brush to get a picture of the flower below.

I got covered in stick-tights (is that how they are spelled?). 

You can see all of the little dots on my leggings.

I think the picture was worth it, though. I think it is pretty cool.

Can you see my little spider friend on the flower? It's on one of the petals.

I was playing with close up stuff and focusing the camera.

I love how you can see all of the details on the dandelion. 

Finding the happy.

This week seemed to start off like any other week. 

Work. Class. Homework.

Then Tuesday night happened.

I found my passenger car window shattered.

No clue how it happened.

My first thought was, "This is JUST what we needed this month. Vet bill, eye doctor bill, and paying for a new car window."

I woke up this morning in a pretty bad mood. 

I was being very short tempered and was thinking a bunch of extremely negative thoughts.

"Well now we won't be able to go do fun things for a few weeks."

"Why is it when it rains, it pours??"

(These are just a small sample of what has been running through my mind this morning.)

Then, my dad offered to help us out if we needed it.

And then, on instagram, someone posted a picture of a saying. 

"There is always something to be happy about."

I really needed that this morning.  I began thinking,well, at least I still have a running car. I have a supportive family that are extremely gracious and would never let me get into bad financial troubles. I have a wonderful husband who came to my rescue last night after I found my window.(It happened in a shopping center at like 10 at night.) I thought about how thankful I was that my window had tint on it so that the window didn't completely shatter into my car. I thought about how both Paul and I have jobs that allow us to pick up extra hours of work if we so choose, so that we can make extra money to cover unexpected bills, such as this.

In the end, I realized that this is not the worst thing to happen.  Sometimes some not so awesome things happen to us to help keep us mindful of the all the good things in our lives.  

When did we grow up?!

So, I began reflecting on life and where it has taken me the past few years.

Between graduating high school, going to college, getting a degree, having a few different jobs, my parents moving to a different state, and of course, my friends and I getting married, there have been SO many changes since 2010.

My best friend (more like sister), Farren, posted her wedding pictures on Facebook. This got me thinking about her wedding day, my wedding day, and then our good friend, Rachel's, wedding day.  I began looking through all of their pictures and remembering what beautiful celebrations they both had.

Marriage is such a special, amazing, fun, scary, frustrating, wonderful thing.  There is no one who I would rather do life with than Paul.  I know that Rachel and Farren feel the same about their husbands.  Looking at their wedding pictures, I can see the love and excitement in their eyes.  We are all young; 22 years old.  To me, this means we share something special. Our American culture seems to frown upon young marriages, like it means we are ending our lives or we won't be 'free' to have fun anymore.  I have heard many comments about how people cannot imagine getting married at my age because they have so much more living to do or they want to get their careers in order before they decide to settle down.  Getting married at a younger age is not for everyone and no one should get married if they are not truly ready for what marriage entails, but here is what I want to say. Paul is my best friend.  There is no one I would rather share life with than him.  Just because we are married, does not mean we don't have fun and don't live life to the fullest.  We go on our own adventures, support each other, and most of all love each other.  We are fully committed to each other and were fully prepared for marriage when we entered into it.

I love that two of my closest friends can relate to me in this aspect.  I see the love they have for their spouses and I am inspired by each of their relationships. They both live lives and marriages that are Christ centered. This is so inspiring and I hope to learn more from them and their spouses in the future.

I hope they don't get upset with me for sharing some of their wedding photos on my blog, but I just want to share how beautiful my friends are and share some special moments from their wedding day (and mine.)

Rachel and Josh

Farren and Dayton

The rest are of me and Mr. C. 

Thank you to two of my closest friends for doing life with me, sharing stories, being supportive, loving me for me, and just being doggone cool people. I love you!

Triple Date Night

So, it has been a while since I have posted.

I really only want to post when there are fun or exciting things to talk about, or if I am inspired. I think my greatest inspiration are friends and family.

So, on that note. I will write about a triple date night I had with some of my best friends.

Paul wanted to spend some 'us' time first.  There was an event downtown called Taste of Springfield and Oktoberfest.  It was an event where local restaurants served samples of some of their dishes.  You purchased tickets then used those tickets to get food.  It was so much fun! We got to try out food from restaurants we have never eaten at before, found a new place we want to go try out with my parents, ran into some co-workers, and had a much needed date.  I love weekends that I get to spend with my husband.

Later that evening we met up with our friends for a triple date.

Farren, Rachel, and I have all been good, well let's say best, friends since fourth grade. (This is when Rachel came to Sacred Heart School.) We have had our ups and downs throughout the years, but recently we have all became really close again.  We started doing girl's nights a few months back and then decided that we all needed to have a triple date night. We are all married, now, so we thought it was appropriate for our husbands to get to know each other.

We found a Saturday where we were all free and planned to go bowling then back to the Kizzire household for nachos and fun.

Bowling was great! I am not a huge bowler, but it was really enjoyable.  Everyone did really well, and we had a little healthy couple competition going on.  The Kizzires won, with the Morrises in second, and the Chernioglos in third.  I'm ok with that.  Farren is way more competitive and we wouldn't have heard the end of it if they would have lost.

We went back to Farren and Dayton's house to have dinner.  We made nachos and let me tell you, they were delicious! It was cool the way the turned out because everyone brought something different to include in the making of the nachos.  I made the chicken and bought sour cream, Rachel brought chips, beans, and jalapenos, Dayton and Farren supplied tomatoes, onions, cheese, and lettuce (and their house.)  What was unique was that Dayton had this seasoning that he added to the sour cream which made it extra delicious and made homemade guacamole. The collaboration made the nachos WAY better than if I would have made them just on my own. One of my favorite things about the night was being able to have dinner family style.  It is rare that I get to eat dinner around a kitchen table with friends or family (because of Paul's work schedule).  It is crazy how much you can miss little things like that. We had lots of good conversation and fellowship that evening.

After dinner the men-folk went off to do man things while us girls finished up the dishes and cleaning and then went to the living room to chat the rest of the night.

The night ended with Farren and I sleeping on the couch.

The next day Farren, Rachel, and I were texting saying how much our husbands enjoyed themselves and how they all asked why we haven't been doing this sooner.  Paul asked when the next one would be.

I would say the night was a HUGE success. Me and Mr. C cannot wait to do it again!

My attempt at being 'artsy'.

Us pretending to be laughing at something super funny. It looks so natural, right?

Our handsome husbands. I gotta say, we did good ladies! *wink*

Love my friends!

Taste of Springfield!

I'm feelin' 22!

So I celebrated my twenty-second birthday this past weekend.

The celebrating started on Thursday at work with my preschool class! We got to have cookies for snack and they sang me the Happy Birthday song.

Then, on Friday, I got to spend a fun night with my best friend, Farren.  We started the night at Bair's and then moved on to go downtown with a co-worker of hers and his friends.  It was a fun night, but I wish that Mr. C could have joined.  He works the evening shift at work, had a really busy day at work, and had a headache, so he decided to stay home and rest. And that was fine because we got to spend all of Saturday together!

Saturday morning we stopped by the Farmer's Market on our way to my parent's house for my birthday celebration. I love that place and I wish I could afford to buy everything everyone has to offer. We picked up some apples and bagels for breakfast. Yum! If you haven't had apples from a farmer's market, go and get some! They are worth the little bit of extra money you may spend on them and so delicious! They have varieties you won't find at Wal-Mart.

After that we made our way to Holiday Island, Arkansas. We got to have lunch with my parents and then, when my brother and his family arrived, went out for a boat ride.  The weather was perfect for a quiet ride on the lake. My parents just bought a pontoon and I LOVE it! We even took the dogs with us.  Good news- CC loves the boat (even though she doesn't like the car or water.)

We had a yummy dinner and then parted ways back home.

It was a short trip but I love any time I get to spend with my family.

Now, for some pictures from this weekend!

Farren and I at Bair's

Mom and brother, Adam.

Sister-in-law, Lee-Ellen, Adam, niece

Me and Mr. C

C.C. exploring

An old bridge and mansion

My dad helping her drive the boat.

A fun weekend

So I am really playing catch up tonight. Three posts in one night! I'm on fire!

This post is about this weekend.

It was a fantastic weekend!

First, on Friday, I got my hair cut.

Now, normally this wouldn't be anything to blog about, but I did something drastic. I got a pixie cut! I have had my hair in a short to medium bob for about 6 years now.  I recently grew it out for the wedding. I was tired of having the same hair and same look.  I had been wanting to chop it all off for about a year now and finally had the guts to do it and I am so glad I did!

I was worried Mr. C wouldn't be a fan but he told me I look beautiful.  So, score!

Later on Friday evening I got to spend time with one of my best friends. Mrs. Rachel M. We have been friends since fourth grade and have become closer this past year. I brought over the fixings for Zuppa Tuscana.  We cooked and ate, then realized we had a hankering for something sweet. We made a run up to the grocery store for cookie dough. We picked out plain chocolate chip and peanut butter chocolate chip. Yum! When we got back home we baked the cookies while watching Frozen. I love our girl's nights!

Saturday was Cox Health employee day.  This is where Paul works as a surgical technologist. (That's the person who sets up the OR with all the instruments and hands tools to the doctor and helps the doctor with... whatever he tells them to, I guess.)  Anyway, employees and their family get free tickets to Silver Dollar City, a theme park in Branson, MO. We went with a couple from Paul's work.  We had a blast. Paul went on the rides with his co-worker and I stayed behind with Monty. (We aren't ride people.) The only ride I went on was a ride where you had to be like 2 feet tall or taller to ride. It's a ride where to float through a tunnel and shoot at targets placed throughout the ride. I think my ending score was like 3,800.  Paul's and our friend's scores were over 100,000.  I claim my gun was broken. After that ride we had dinner then parted ways.

Sunday I had to work. Normally this is an agonizing four hours of work. I am a nursery coordinator for a Lutheran church and normally on Sundays we don't get very many children, if any at all.  Well today I had at least three kids in the room at a time, and for a brief period of time I had more! It was wonderful! One of the little girls was cracking me up. She is about 3 years old. She kept calling everyone honey.  She would tell another child, "Honey, you can't play with that toy that way." or "Honey, finish your gold fish crackers!" Kids are something else!

After work, I picked Paul up and we went to one of our favorite restaurants for sushi.  We shared a roll and each got a teriyaki dish. It was delicious.

Then we picked up our dog and took her for a walk at the park.  We dropped her off at home then went on a drive to look at houses that we wish we could buy. (We won't be able to buy a house for probably at least 3 years.) We like to do this every now and again.  I love this because it get's us talking about our future and dreaming together. Things like, "Oh! That yard would be great for kids!" or "I can see ourselves having a bbq and fire pit in the backyard." come up. It's so nice dreaming about our future.

After that, we came home.  He began watching Grey's Anatomy (which I got him hooked to) and I began homework and writing my blog posts.  It has been a wonderful weekend.

My new hair!

Park selfie. Selfies are hard to take with a dog...

Mr. C is 22!

So, Paul turned 22 last weekend.

His birthday was Sunday, but I love birthdays so I wanted him to have a fun birthday weekend.

Friday night I had a meeting planned with a couple friends and then wanted to hang out after we got finished. Little did I know that Paul put in to get off early at work if it was slow, and it was slow so he got home at about 8 instead of 11:30.  Now, I had no idea and he wanted to surprise me on the one night that I decided to have a life, ha-ha.

Paul wound up meeting up with my friend Farren, her friend, and me later that night and we all hung out.  But, when I got home I came home to a cleaned living room, washed dishes, flowers and the DVD Frozen. He said it was a little early birthday present to me.  He did this all for me on HIS birthday weekend.  What a sweetheart I have.

Saturday turned out to be a lazy day and Sunday was spent at church, having lunch with his sister and her family and going to the cheap-y movie theater.

Monday, Labor Day, we traveled to Sedalia to spend the day with his family.  His brother and his family and sister and her family also made the trip up.  It was my first Chernioglo family gathering as an actual Chernioglo. The day was filled with volleyball, laughs, cooking, eating, a frozen air conditioner and lots of talking. It was a wonderful weekend.

We also got a new camera for as a wedding present, so I had fun testing it out.  Here are some that were from the first time I tried it out then some from the day at Paul's mom's house.

P.S.- Sorry for the overload of pictures... I narrowed it down to this from 80!

My dad and my dog, CC.

My parent's dog, Chester.

My cute dog, CC, being cute.

My wonderful parents.

My husband fishing at his mom's pond. 

Paul's mom's house.

Uncles, nieces, and nephews playing volleyball.

And again.

Paul and his brother

Family playing.

The children absorbed in some form of technology.

Paul and his wonderful mom.

Nephews being funny.