Dangerous

Dangerous is what I like to call the Target dollar spot when I *think* I'm going to Target to pick up some Christmas lights for our tree, a Christmas present for a friend, and some coffee for R.

Then I make the mistake of checking out the dollar goods and my cart ends up with things like these inside...

From L-R: wine bottle gift tags, matching notepad & pen set, Santa mug to leave with his cookies, gingerbread men gift tags, and an awesome 'stache koozie.  

Also dangerous?  Running into Target yet again the next day to pick up three more boxes of Christmas lights because you didn't buy enough the first time.  (Christmas tree newbie here!)  Also on the list: tree skirt, bread, and peanut butter.  You allot ten minutes tops because you don't want to be late for your toddler's gym class.  Outcome?  You are ten minutes late to your toddler's gym class but everything on your list was found ... and even a few other things.

Daaaaaaaaang it.  Target is definitely my kryptonite!

Thanksgiving :: Perfection

If you are reading this post, it is because the awesome Apple peeps fixed my problems yet again, but this time I really had them stumped.  The guy had to go in the back and ask for help not once, but twice, and finally a chick (because girls are smarter, duh) solved the issue at hand.  But only after claiming it was the weirdest thing she had ever seen.  

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We survived our first holiday gathering at our house.  All twenty-two family members ate until their hearts (or pants) content, and I half joked about pulling out my maternity pouch pants from its bin in the closet to adequately allow me some extra eating room.  For the record, I only polished off one (very full) plate and that is all I ate the entire day.  

Things I am very thankful for:

1. The four boxes of Thanksgiving décor that my mama let me borrow to spruce up our place.  In true "me" fashion, I pulled everything out the night before/the morning of to decorate... 

Like the wrinkled bed sheet/table cloth?  I thought my mom had a real table cloth big enough for our dining room table in one of the boxes... I was wrong and of course it was too late to go out and get one!  Doh!

2. A house filled with many loved ones...

Grandparents

My parents

Sweet cousins 

Older sis and hubby

Brother in middle with girlfriend's family from Iowa... love that they all came in burnt orange!

Someone is getting sleepy!

R's mom and stepdad 

3. Food, food, and more food!  Have I mentioned that I love Thanksgiving day food?  Good thing I told everyone to bring tupperware!

My older sis made ALL of these desserts!

It's not a Texas Thanksgiving without some brisket!

4. Beautiful weather (ummm... mid 70's approaching December?!?) that allowed for some quality outdoor time...

Lucy enjoys the fire pit as much as G does.  Who needs a sand box?

Lovely day for some corn hole!

The only non-awesome thing?  A certain little two year old who refused to nap since there was a fabulous party going on in his house.  Good times.

We already voted for my brother and girlfriend to host next year in their new house and then the year after that will belong to my little sis and her hubby at their new house.  New family rule: new house = hosts for Turkey Day!

Weekend recap

I apologize if you have checked in the past week only to find ... nothing.  I had good intentions of blogging on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but as you can plainly see, those intentions did not come to fruition.

Last Monday, I went to the Apple store because my new phone's camera was taking pictures all blurry. Only worked if you were superupclose, and while macro shots are cool and all, I need that camera to work, peeps.  Since, you know, that is the camera I use on a daily basis instead of lugging around the really nice one that I still do not know how to use properly.  Ugh.  Anyway, the awesome Apple dude didn't bat an eye and happily switched my month old phone for a brand new phone.  Thank you and muchas gracias.

New phone = working phone camera.  Except now my new phone and my Apple laptop aren't communicating and I cannot upload any of my phone pictures onto my laptop.  Curses!  So back to Apple I go tomorrow where I am sure they will fix my problem in less than five minutes, even though I've spent time googling and trying to remedy the situation on my own.  Le sigh.  First world problems, yes, and thank you baby Jeebus that's all I have.

Whew.  The point of all of that blabber jabber was really my excuse reason why I did not blog.  Since most blog posts sans pictures are not much fun.  And because I really want to do my Thanksgiving recap post with lots o' pics that I want uploaded the easy way.

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So anyways...

Thursday - Thanksgiving!  Yay, was awesome!  We pulled off our first big family production at our house and I'm still thankful for yummy leftovers.  I'll do its own proper recap when I get my pictures properly uploaded.  Please try not to lose sleep while you wait in suspense.  ;)

Friday - my little sis and I hit up good ole Wally Mart for some Black Friday deals.  I'm not normally the Black Friday shopper, and I do not like to wake up early for anything or stand in a ridiculous line for something to buy.

I had my nieces circle things out of a couple toy catalogs on Thanksgiving for Christmas ideas, so off we went to score some presents and check that off of our lists.  We went at a reasonable hour (after 9:00) and it seemed maybe only slightly crowded than a given day.  I think all of the hardcore shoppers had probably already come and gone for the door busters.

Probably an hour later after checking reviews online and competitor's prices (I have to cover all of my bases), we had decided on our respective purchases and are done with the littles.

Three things that I learned from this experience:

1. There are some crazy doll fads right now.  Monster High?  I don't get it, but apparently it's all the rage.  It's nice to see that My Little Pony is still a hot commodity though.
2. It is absolutely imperative that you keep your shopping cart close to you at all times.  Like I said, it wasn't very crowded, but I had this one lady checking out the goods in my cart while we were just a few feet away scoping out some other items.  So I had to pull the, "Oh, I'm sorry, is my cart in your way?"  When I really wanted to be like, "Lady, that's my Monster High crap!  Keep moving!"  
3. Kids still get a huge thrill circling things in toy catalogs.  Especially my seven year old niece that went painstakingly through three catalogs, and then went back and did a one or two star notation besides the items that she really wanted since there was a lot of circling going on.  Except for Monster High, which received five stars, hence the crap in my cart.

Good times.

Later that day, I took R's mom to the mall to score some deals at the Disney Store for G, her little prince.  The mall was much, much more crowded and G is now much, more more spoiled thanks to his "gamma."  :)

Saturday - We took G over to my parents' casa to drop off G (and give Gamma at home a break) while we borrowed their truck and bought our first(!!) Christmas tree.  Isn't she bee-u-tiful?

Noble fir, tree skirt-less for the time being.  Next up: decorating!

After we procured our lovely tree, we hauled off some big things from the backyard the previous owners left behind and swapped the truck with my parents for our toddler.  P.S. I am really digging having a truck in the family. Definitely comes in handy when you need one!

Saturday night, Gamma was kind enough to babysit her sweet prince so we could go out on a real date and not have to pay a babysitter.  Score!  We had dinner at a yummy steakhouse using the gc she had sent us for our birthdays back in August and then went to see Argo with some friends.  If you haven't seen it, do!  Easily the best movie I have seen all year.  We were very thankful for grandparents on Saturday.

Sunday - we had to say goodbye to Gamma.  G only started saying her name on this trip, so she was ecstatic to say the least.  They will be back in one month for Christmas.

  

The rest of today? 

 Eating pb&j in mismatched jammies...

I promise the jelly is NOT spiked!  :)

Taking two bubble baths because early morning jelly is messy and bubble baths are always highly entertaining.

Going to the park and bringing too many lovies (and this does not include all of the ones we made him leave at home ... sad face.

You better believe it that all he did was swing ... and slide ONCE.  Also, those extra legs poking out the swing holes belong to Bulls Eye and Woody, just in case you HAD to know.  :)

And getting out all of his lovies, all of the pillows from the upstairs couch, all of the books from the playroom bookcase, and some other randoms such as his changing pad and sleeping bag to create one big mess.  He likes to do this.  All.day.long.

It makes me twitch a little since I hate messes.  But he has fun and helps clean up.

'Twas a good weekend, it was!

P.S. One month until Christmas?!?

Taking the perfect family picture

Ha, does that even exist when you have a certain stubborn two year old?  We had Christmas card family photos attempt número dos yesterday at our house.

In case you missed the first attempt recap, it did not go well.  I bought a curling iron to attempt the beachy waves look.  Fail.  We met outdoors in the morning with our photographer (also my BFF) and it was crazy windy.  Fail due to kite flying weather and G's morning grumps.  He was not having it and R is not gung ho on photo sessions either.  Two peas in a pod, those two.  Cue mama frustration, so we quickly decided another attempt was necessary.  This time at our house, indoors, and in the late afternoon/early evening when G is much happier.

My new curling iron will have to wait when I have more time to practice.  Instead, I went to a blo dry bar that washes your hair and styles it.  So worth it if you are either bad with hair, like me, or if you would prefer that someone else do it.  My stylist did awesome curls just using a flat iron, so maybe I should work on that technique as well.

Then I headed over to Macy's for a *free* makeover since I'm not the best with make-up either.  How am I even a girl, right?!?  Le sigh.  *I did purchase some foundation.*

G was much better, but it's still so hard to get him to sit still, look at the camera, and smile.  Most of the session looked like this...

Whatcha talkin bout, Willis?

What?  I get a jelly bean if I smile?!?  Deal!  Cheeeeeese!!!

Can't catch me!

I'd rather play in the fire pit rocks.

...Or ride my roller coaster.  Weeeee!

Never a dull moment with this one!  Thankfully, there were a few good ones mixed in the bunch!  Even the ones that I deem non-Christmas card worthy are worthy of keeping for memories sake.  They definitely capture his two year old little spirit and personality.

Maybe next year will be easier?  :)

Weekend recap

Only four more days until Thanksgiving... eeeek!  I am looking forward to hosting all twenty-four people at our house, but will then look forward to a quiet and clean house again, not gonna lie.  :)

We went to our first movie in forever on Friday night to see the new James Bond.  I found it entertaining, but R thought it was highly unrealistic (typical for him - he is a harsh movie critic). A new theatre opened up not far from our house and it serves food during the movie while you sit in leather, reclining chairs.  Even if you don't care for the movie, it's hard not to be comfortable!

Saturday was a lazy day spent lounging around after a crossfit challenge kick-off in the morning.  My body is h-u-r-t-i-n-g, but it will be good to shed some weight (instead of gaining) over the holidays.

Today we went to the Empty Bowl Project - something I have always wanted to attend.  You pay $20/person, pick out a custom made bowl, and then choose a soup from a local vendor.  All of the proceeds go towards local hunger fighting projects.

Our bowls of soup - yum! 

All in all, a nice little weekend!

Wednesday Love

Where is November going and how is it already Wednesday???

I'm linking up with Jamie for some more Wednesday love.

I am loving spending quality time with my sweet boy ... this age can be so fun right now and he makes me smile and laugh on a daily basis.

Pardon the blur that is his hands

I am loving this super easy recipe that is my go-to for crock pot pulled pork.  Seriously.  It gets rave reviews every time I make it.  I wish I could remember where I got it from so I could link it properly, but I'm afraid I copied it onto a napkin and that is now the only link I have.

I am loving that it is finally cold enough to make a fire!

We inherited an awesome outdoor {duh} fire pit when we bought this house, so I'm anxious to try that out next.

I am still loving Crossfit even though I could barely make it up the stairs today.  I contemplated crawling but decided that even I could not stoop that low ... yet.


I am loving this picture that my bestie took of G this past weekend even though the wind was ca-razy (meaning my hair was all over the place, so no good pics of me!).

G was being a super grouch, so we are going to try again this weekend at our house.  Indoors this time.  Oh, and also, the whole hair curling thing?  Not a good idea to attempt it for the first time the morning of pictures.  Haha... just sayin.  Some things never change.  Sigh.

I am loving that we went to see Santa yesterday and there was no line.  Yes, I do realize that it is not even Thanksgiving and no, I am not skipping over the turkey.  Just the lines.  :)  G didn't cry this year (yay!) and was happy to get his "prize" at the end ... a Christmas hat and lollipop.  Santa obviously knows the way to his heart... tandy!

I'll post the pics after Thanksgiving.  I do have some tact, people.  :)

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

You know you're at Wal-Mart when...

Okay, first let me preface this post and say that I do go to Wal-Mart and have nothing wrong with people who go there.

It's just that the Wal-Mart crowd (depending on which Wal-Mart location you go to, at least in my town) is very {ahem} eclectic and diverse.

Not long ago, G and I headed out to run a few errands and Wally Mart was the first stop on my list.  I had a few very specific things I needed to get there.  This specific WM always makes me feel like I've stepped into another town even though it is only maybe fifteen minutes from our house.  Think country bumpkinville... lots of camo, missing teeth, mullets, southern accents, etc.

When we checked out, we hit the jackpot.  The man in front of us in line was wearing full camo, had a mullet, and was buying more camo.  :)  P.S. I don't own any camo but don't care if you do.

I saw this on a friend's FB the other day and got a good laugh, but then immediately felt guilty for finding it funny.

Please ignore that whoever created this could not correctly spell "aisle."

Obviously it's exaggerated for humor sake, but you know you found yourself smirking ... at least a little!