Fleming's Stake House A La Brittany

As posted earlier, Benton's birthday was this week. So, being short on cash, I thought it would be fun to make him a really yummy fun dinner instead of blowing $50+ at a restaurant. The Cotter's LOVE Fleming's stake house. Benton and I were fortunate to go there twice while we were dating, so I was able to experience it and, in true Cotter form, I too fell in love with the cuisine. It is REALLY good, but it doesn't come cheap, oh no. We figure we'll go there again when we're 50 and loaded.
So, I decided to give Benton Fleming's, in the comfort of our own home. I got Porter House Stakes, the BEST kind of stake ever, on sale, and I found the recipe for Fleming's Potatoes online. After reading the recipe I've nicknamed them "heart attack potatoes" becuase holy moly there's enough sat fat to give your ateries a good clog in one fell swoop.
I busted out Mom's china, goblets, and real silverware, as well as candle light and a single rose. I also had music playing softly in the background to complete the ambiance. We ate our delicious salad, stake and potatoes, drank Dr Pepper out of our goblets and then I surpised him again with another Fleming's homemade favorite for dessert. Chocolate Lava Cake. yummmmmm. It was all oh so delicious and very romantic, we even danced right there in the dining room.
The entire evening was a success and so fun, aside from the few pounds I now have to lose. Benton said it was just as good as Fleming's, even the stake, and he actually meant it, and pretty much I rock. I turned a $100 meal into a $10 meal and we didn't even have to leave the house.

Our food, Benton was nice enough to split the Filet Mignon part of the porter house with me

Even Macey got in on the action when it was time for the Lava Cake
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENTON!! WE LOVE YOU!!

Here's how to grill The best stake you'll ever have!
Porter House stake, salt both sides and let sit for an hour before grilling on HI for 4 minutes on each side and you're done. It is so good it will make you salivate. Promise.

Happy Birthday Benton!!

My cute husband turns the big 26 today! He's getting so old. Macey and I wanted to give him a shout out to tell them how much we LOVE him and appreciated all the bazillion things he does for us! Thanks babe for working you're little tail off, day in and day out, so we can afford to live and I can stay home with our baby girl. Thanks for your example, no matter how much school and work drags on, you never let it get you down and you never ever quit. Thanks for doing the manly things around the house, and killing the bugs, so I don't have to. Thanks for playing with Macey, especially in the mornings, and letting me get some rest. Thanks for never complaining about changing a diaper. Thanks for being such a CUTE, doting, and Loving father!! Thanks for showing me how to be humble and meek, and NEVER getting upset or angry. THANKS for being the ROCK of our family! We could go on and on about you, but most importantly, WE LOVE YOU!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Love, Britt and Macey Sue

this picture ha special meaning, if you look super close, you see red dots in the tree. Those are Cardinals. Benton's always been a true fan, GO CARDS!

My How She's Grown!.... well, sorta

Macey turned 4 months last week, time goes by so quick, it's amazing! She's so much fun and so expressive these days. She's got the cutest smile and big laugh and she uses them ALL the time. She's also mastered rolling over and likes to roll across the floor any chance she gets.
We took her in to her well visit and Benton got to come for once! I was glad to have him there while she got shots, becuase I don't like it much, so I wanted him to have to deal with it, yeah he had to deal with 3 seconds worth of crying. She's one tough cookie.
The funnest part, as always, is to see how big she is. She's even smaller than we thought! She weighed in at 10 lbs 10oz, 23 in long. That's 3-5 percentile for weight, 7th for length and 3rd for her head. She's so tiny but we LOVE her!

Christmas Catch Up

A cute shot of Macey and Jane in their matchy Christmas dresses, Thanks Aunt Trudy!!!

I think I've waited too long to update the old blog and now I'm just all confused about what to blog about. So here it goes in, what I'm sure to be, a random makes-no-kind-of- sense order.

Big news in Macey's and our world, on Jan 3, she ROLLED OVER for the 1st time! And of course it was the one time I didn't have the camera ready, so we missed it, but it was very sudden, I put her on her tummy and literally 2 seconds later she was flat on her back. We tried our best to get her to do it again, but it's been a week now and no go. But we're still excited for her. She is, however, a champ at wiggling around and NOT staying in one place for long.
We didn't get video of her rolling over, but this was taken right after!
(she just looks really cute and extra small in her bumbo)


So, Christmas was wonderful as usual. It was very busy and filled with lots of family time, parties and a few extra pounds. A few highlights: hay ride with my family the Sunday before, looking at lights and singing carols, well attempting to, it's amazing how many words you don't know without music in front of you, we stuck to "Jingle Bells" a lot of the time.

(most of the fam on the hay ride, this is actually in front of Benton's Grandma's house)

A couple weeks before the big day, I made Macey a stocking, it's not perfect, but for my first try I think I did pretty dang good. I even sewed all the letters except the "c" it's too curvy and scary for an amateur like me.


Attempting to take family pictures. We haven't taken one since '04, and well it's way over due. It was pretty funny, and it's gonna need some help from photoshop but we did it!
our little family pic
(big family pic, I think only one kid is picking their nose and almost everyone is looking)

Benton is so clever and has this AMAZING talent for finding spectacular deals for anything and everything online. He bought all but one gift online, so everyday the UPS guys would bring another box to the door and I'd have to resist the temptation to open it, that can be really hard! He found some sweet stuff, I felt bad, he got really boring presents from me. He got me Guitar Hero, which he got for $7, and then the coolest part, a few days later he came home with ROCK BAND2 for the Wii he got for FREE!! That game is so fun, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm good.

With the holidays comes reunions, I love it when old friends come to town! I got to see a several friends I haven't seen in a long time! It was great to connect with all of you and I can't wait to see you all again!! And along those lines, Benton had most of the week of Christmas off so we actually got to hang out as a couple WITH friends!!! That is truly a rarity for us, I honestly can't remember the last time he had gone out with friends. Thanks Mike and Alesia for letting us crash your parties twice, it was really very exciting for us.


Earl's Girl's reunion, (Bette Sue, Amy, Lindsey and me) Bette Sue couldn't come for lunch, so we visited her at work, her poor client hated us cuz Bette Sue stopped and talked to us forEVER. haha poor lady.this picture is just funny

One of my all-time favorite people, Tara, and me, it's been years since we've seen each other. So fun!!