A birthday tribute

Today is my gorgeous little sister's birthday!!! Happy birthday Sara! Eric and i wish we could celebrate with you today, but we will just have to make up for it when you come out here in a few weeks( I cannot wait for this)! We love you and hope you have a fabulous day!

In Orlando!

Being such a good big sister and teaching Sara how to properly eat a chicken wing

Us with our cousin Maddie

She gave the sweetest speech at our wedding which made me cry...

...then she caught the bouquet! Look at dad freaking out in the background haha. 

All dressed up

Out to lunch

Hanging in the pool

And last but not least.....I just HAVE to do this..........................................................................................

A birthday bonus!!!!

o.m.g. look at dad's glasses.

lol

We were cute...well, at least to our mom. haha

I think this was the first day of school one year.

And the worst of them all....This was before Summerfest when we won backstage passes and got to meet 98 Degrees! Can you say, "awkward teenage years"??

Happy birthday Sara!

Love,

Megan and Eric

Meet Mia!

More to come later, but this is our new baby girl, Mia! How precious is she?!

Love,

The new parents

The Great State Fair of Okla...I mean... Arizona!

The fair is here! Eric and I went with our friend Kevin, one of the general surgery residents at Mayo. It was a good time, but I must say, the Oklahoma State Fair is WAY better. Maybe I'm just a little biased and I like everything better in Oklahoma :) 

Can I just tell you that the three of us felt so sick the next day from eating the fair food?! Eric couldn't even stand to hear the word "hamburger" for a long time after the fair, and this is why:

This is a 4 lb burger!! Eric and Kevin shared this, and they ate it ALL.  Eric had trouble at the end and I really thought as soon as we stood up he was going to lose it.  And look at those curly fries! They were hardly even touched by the boys...they had to save room for their burger!

I think he was giving himself a pep talk here. 

Annnnnd action!

Hi cute bunny!

This is the amount of beef Eric and Kevin consumed this night.

Cute little piggies!

My splurge of the night: fried Oreos! I had my doubts, but they were amazing.

Trying to absorb all the gross/good food we ate

Love you best husband in the world!

Hope all you Okies got to go to the fair and eat some fair food...and hope you were all as miserable as we were the next day!

Love,

The Wises

What a Week

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. It has just been an insane week. Last Sunday we added a new member to our little family, Mia the boxer! She is super cute and we love her a lot. We are having a little trouble with her behaving while we are gone though, so we are working on that. She deserves her own post so for now I just have to tell you about the other major event that happened on the evening we got Mia, my car wreck. 

Let me just tell you that I am sick and tired of just minding my own business and getting hit by another car. In April I was driving to work and got rear ended on the highway. Our first week here in Phoenix I got hit at a stoplight and the driver did not stop and there was no license plate on the car. Oh and lets not forget about the time my car was parked in the Target parking lot when a cart pusher ran into my car.  Or the time in high school when a car hydroplaned and hit me because they were driving too fast in the rain.

 So, THIS TIME: I decided to go to Fresh 'N Easy about a block away to pick up something for Eric and me to have for dinner. I'm just sitting at the red light, waiting to make my right turn. THEN: a 16 year old boy in a Yukon (brand new, rims, etc) decided to run a red light.  In this process he slammed into an SUV in the intersection, which spun to the other side of the road towards my car. I look, I scream, brace for impact, and then my car spins around, jumps the curb, and slams into an electrical box on the side of the road. I got hit so hard my glasses flew off my face. And the air bags for some reason did not go off (I supposedly have side impact air bags and if they were working properly, there is no way they would not have gone off...we have to talk, Toyota). Since I was just going on a 5 minute round trip, I did not bring my phone so I couldn't call Eric. Luckily a lady let me use her phone to call him. He was so scared when he got there because there were so many police officers, fire trucks, and ambulances.  They had even set up flares around the scene and blocked off the road in both directions.  Luckily, no one was seriously hurt.  The woman that was hit in the intersection was getting sleepy so they thought she had a concussion, so she was taken to the hospital to get checked out.  I have huge bruises on my leg and knee, and other various places around my body, and my back and neck are pretty stiff.  I chose not to go to the hospital to get checked out since I had to do this in April and didn't feel like going through the whole process again. The boy who ran the red light came out without a scratch. Figures. (Don't get me wrong, it's not like I wanted him to get hurt, I just feel like it always happens where the person that causes the accident always walks away unscathed. 

Anyway, my car is most likely totaled. I should find out for sure today. Here are some pictures of the accident. 

getting ready to be towed away

:(

my poor car.

Busted tire and the wheel is broken.

the bumper hanging on by a thread

bye bye bumper.

Thank you Lord for sending guardian angels that protected all of us involved in this accident.

 I did not feel right taking a picture of this, but at the exact corner my car was hit, there was a wooden cross in the ground marking the place where a man had died in a car crash in February. Wow. God was looking out for me this night. 

Thank God for your life today.

Love,

The Wises

Could it be possible...

...that I finally like my hair???

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I do like my hair, but most of the time it is part curly, part straight, and part poof ball. i don't mind the curls when I'm having a good hair day.  Those good hair days are just few and far between.  So a lot of the time I just end up wearing my hair in a ponytail or putting tons and tons of heat on it and frying it. So I decided to get a Brazilian Blowout. There was a 50% off deal on Living Social, so I went for it. I got the treatment done on Wednesday and I am in love. IN LOVE! Anyone with frizzy, poof ball hair should do this.  Worth.every.penny. The best part is, the blowout is actually a protective barrier, it's not a harsh chemical like the straightening treatments out there. 

Please beware of my "before" picture I am about to post.  If you get scared of ugly self-pictures with bad lighting worsened by huge unruly hair, just close your eyes. I cannot believe I am posting this picture for the world (or the few people that read this blog) to see. But I must do it to show how amazing the treatment worked. Here it goes...................................................................................................................................

I told you it was bad.  This is even after sleeping with it in a ponytail the night before, so it is a little more tame than normal (hard to believe, I know.)

Now for my "after" picture! This picture is after just blow drying my hair.  No straightener or anything.  Usually after a plain blow dry my hair looks like a stuck my finger in a light socket and I have to use the curling iron or straightening iron to make it look presentable.  None of that here!!! Just a quick 5-minute blow dry:

YAY!!!!

Here's to less frequent bad-hair-days!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Happy Birthday Hayden!!!

Today is Hayden's third birthday!  Hayden is one of my best friend's little boy. I hope Eric and I have a little boy that is as sweet as Hayden is.  He always gives the sweetest hugs and kisses! When I came home for the first time for Carissa to have Aspen, we were at her house and Hayden remembered who I was after not seeing me for 2 months! It was so sweet and I love this little man! I wish we could be there to give you a big birthday hug Hayden!!

Getting fitted for his ring bearer tux!

Already way cooler than this weirdo.

Over it.

Yummy pre-wedding city bites cookies! Such a sweet boy!

Hayden and his gorgeous mom and greatest friend, Carissa!

He's already making the girls blush!

Doing his ring-bearer thing!

Love you Hayden! We hope you have lots of fun on your birthday!!

Love,

The Wises

I opened my front door...

and found a package with this inside!!!!!!!!!

If you don't remember, I wrote a little note to my family secret santa about things I wanted for Christmas (read about it here)...

When I was working in Oklahoma, we had a very very sick girl come in to our ICU. None of us new if she would make it or not. I can't share anything else about her story on a public blog, but I will say that after a long battle in our ICU she pulled through and is now a happy, healthy, beautiful woman. We became pretty close through her stay with us in the hospital.  She sent me this as a 'thank you' gift for taking care of her. What a sweet thing to do. Now, every Christmas when we hang this up I will always remember her and everything she went through.  I grew as a nurse taking care of her and I will never forget her for that!  Thank you so much for your sweet, sweet gift!

Love,

Megan

No words...

just love him.

Love,

Eric's wife

Yummy and Low Fat Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes!

So a while ago my good friend Carissa told me about using a can of pumpkin in cake mix instead of all of the "wet" ingredients like oil and eggs etc.  On Tuesday it was more like an Oklahoma day here in Phoenix...rain, thunder, even hail...all day long.  It was perfect.  I had the AC off all day long and just enjoyed the cool air.  Then I started craving something sweet and fall-like. I started looking up recipes and found tons for pumpkin muffins and cupcakes...but they were all so fattening and I didn't really want to completely ruin my awesome swim workout from earlier that day.  So I remembered the can of pumpkin tip and decided to give it a try.  Most recipes tell you to use the pumpkin in chocolate cake mix, but I wanted to actually taste the pumpkin and I couldn't find a specific recipe I wanted to try so I just whipped up something of my own and they turned out fantastic! This seriously shocked me since I am NOT good at just making things up...I follow recipes extremely strictly! I wish I had taken more pictures but I didn't think they would turn out this good...They are super easy and super cheap to make and you don't have to feel guilty about eating them! 

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

1 box spice cake mix, any brand

1 15 oz can pure pumpkin

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Mix all ingredients together (mixture will be way thicker than regular cupcake batter). Fill a muffin pan with some cute cupcake wrappers and fill 2/3 of the way with the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for the time it says on the cake box.

While you're waiting for those to bake...

Yummy (and not that bad for you) Cream Cheese Icing

1 8 oz package reduced fat cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup powdered sugar (yes this is a ton of powdered sugar...you could definitely cut this recipe in half if you are like Eric and me and don't like tons of icing on your cupcakes)

Make sure and let your cupcakes cool all the way on a cooling rack before icing them.

Yummy!

The icing!

Cupcakes + icing!
I also sprinkled a little cinnamon on top of the icing for a little something extra.

Yes I did eat two of them in a row after they were done...

and yes I did keep the extra icing in the fridge and may have been eating it over the past two days by itself.

Eric was on call this night so out of fear I might eat ALL of these by myself, I took them up to the hospital for Eric and the other residents to munch on. When Eric brought the container home they were all gone! He said they were a hit. I'll definitely be making these again.

Happy fall baking!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Happy Birthday Ry Ry!!!

Today is our good friends' (Tyler and Darin) daughter's 3rd birthday! Happy birthday Ryan! I remember going the hospital when Ryan was born, and now she is the cutest, funniest, sweetest little toddler! Eric adores her, and is convinced even our own child couldn't possibly be as cool! I lived with Tyler and Darin for a few months (still so thankful for that!) so Ryan and I became pretty close.We are so sad we aren't in Oklahoma to celebrate this special little girl's birthday with her.

Ryan used to call Eric "Ello" Before she could say his name.

Eric and Ry Ry dancing at Stu and Cat's wedding :)

Ryan and Meh. She used to call me this before she could pronounce the "G" sound.

Getting ready for Ryan to be the cutest flower girl ever (which she is an expert at by now).

Ryan and Tyler at our wedding!

Doing her flower girl thing!

Meeting baby brother Drew for the first time!

Hope you have a great birthday Ryan! 

Love,

Meh and Ello