I was liebstered

Chelsea over at The Quantum View and Claudine from Condensed Home Love have awared me the Liebster Award

Here's the description of the award (taken from Chelsea's page):

The Liebster Blog Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The Meaning; Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Here are the rules for receiving this award:

 1. Each person must post 5 things about themselves.
2. Choose 5 people and link them in your post.
3. Go to their page and tell them.
4. Remember, no tag backs!

Okay. Here goes the "11" things about me! 

1. I signed up to run my first marathon in January.
2. I am a mom to dynomite.  (TNT-Taylor, Nathan and Troy)
3. I am a chemical engineer by degree, artist by love.
4. I HATE chocolate except in our family recipe of yummy chocolate chip bars.
5. I love Fiestaware, I can't wait until my collection is big enough and my kids are old enough to use it daily.
6. I blog on my Apple macbook and was one of the people ordering an iPhone the day sprint announced they were going to sell them. 
7. I love my woodland fairy garden and all the mushrooms in it.
8. I still call Minnesota home after living over half my life in Michigan, and now my parents reside in Wisconsin.
9. I drink too much Cherry Coke Zero.  I try to stick to one can a day, but most are not successful.
10. I need to become more organized.
11. I wish I would have legally kept my maiden name in my name.  It is still so much of who I am.
12. I talk to my mom on Skype at least once a day, despite us living 700+ miles apart.  
13. I added these two extra facts, because 13 is very important to me.  It's my birthday, my husband's birthday, our wedding anniversary, day of our first date, birthday of a dear set of family friends, and  birthday of one of our sons.  Definitely my favorite number!

Chelsea's post had questions for me to answer:

• What is your favorite song lyric and why? Silent Night, any verse on Christmas Eve Candelight Service.  One of my most favorite and magical moments of Christmas every year!

• What is an average day in your life like?  
Mom, chef, chauffeur, cheerleader, artist, runner, blogger, cleaner...maybe not in that order but those are the balls that I try to juggle.

• Sweet food or spicy food?  SWEET!  

• Why did you start blogging?   to try and find some identity to me other than mom  while juggling 3 kids and a husband who travels schedules

• If you were on a desert island and could have one person with you, what person would that be and why?  I suppose I should pick my husband, but would enjoy my mom too :)

• Where do you find inspiration?  For painting, I find lots from lots of you creative bloggers out there.  For parenting, my parents.  For running, my mom and my dear friend Olivia

• What are your goals for the next five years?   Run my first marathon- its scheduled 1.13.13!, make a profit with my paintbrush,  need to add some more

• What are three things you wish would disappear from the world/your life?  my squishy tummy, the miles between myself and my parents, 

• What do you do in your spare time?  what spare time?  read, play catch or games with kids, thrift shop

• What are your guilty pleasures?  Cherry Coke Zero, frosting, fried onion strings

• What is your biggest dream?  that Blue skadooing really worked ( do you know what I am talking about?  How they jump into the computer on Blue's Clues and jump out somewhere else?  If I could so Blue skadoo to see my parents or them to me! 

Claudine's post  asked for 5 random facts about me and said to award to 5 people.   Since I was awarded this once before and nominated others before, I chose the nominate 5 rule.  I   As I pass this on, I am asking my nominations to complete the  random facts about themselves.  What a fun way to get to know you better.   

My nominations are:  

Cottage 4c

Morena's Corner

The Concrete Cottage

Number Fifty Three

Rendition Road

Congrats ladies!  You all deserve it.  I can't wait to learn more about you from your random facts!