Christmas Ideas

Have you decorated for Christmas yet? If I'm judging by Facebook, it seems like we are the last people on Earth to decorate. Usually, if we are in town for Thanksgiving, we pull out a lot of the decorations Thanksgiving weekend, however, we never get the tree up this early. We usually put ours up a little bit later than a lot of people.

We are planning on getting our stuff out this week as soon as we have time and everyone (meaning Matt, too) is in town to help. I've been doing some thinking about changing where we put our tree, but I haven't decided for sure yet. The girls are going to see their other grandparents this weekend, so Matt and I can do some Christmas shopping away from prying eyes. Maybe we'll get some decisions made this weekend.

I mentioned yesterday that I was perusing Pinterest for some new ideas. I put them together in a collage to show you. Aren't they fun?

Thanksgiving Recap

I've been a little absent on the blog lately, so I figure we're due for a little Thanksgiving recap.

This year we made the trek to visit family in Tennessee. It has been WAY too long since we have been down there. We left as soon as Abby got out of school on Wednesday. We hit horrible traffic trying to get across the Ohio river into Kentucky. It took us almost about an hour and a half to make it about 7 miles. Not a great start to our trip. We ended up breaking up our trip and finishing Thursday morning.

We had a great Thanksgiving. The girls had lots of time with their cousins. Abby played soccer outside well into the darkness with Kyle and Tucker. Don' t let the dress fool you, she kept up with them! We even had a "photo shoot," but I haven't seen all the pictures yet.

We ended up having a family gathering of some kind each day we were there. Phew! That's a lot of family! :)

Some not-fun parts were that both Abby and I woke up with pink eye on Saturday, so I had to make an unscheduled call to her pediatrician to get them to call in a prescription. They said it was their 8th call for it. Apparently pink eye is going around! Our trip home was awful. We left Matt's parents home and not even 5 minutes later, Lily threw up. We turned right around and got her all cleaned up. I was then a nervous wreck. It turned out, I think she just gagged and choked herself, but at them time we didn't know that. It also rained the ENTIRE way home AND our 7 hour drive took 10 because of traffic problems. I also come home with an awful head cold that was just started when we left on Wednesday. Did you know that when your ears are already clogged up, that going through mountains really hurts? Yup, no fun.

That all said, we had a great time with family, but we are also a bunch of homebodies and are glad to be home.

Next up, decorating for Christmas! I've been perusing Pinterest for some new ideas!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

As we head into Thankgiving, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy one!

Also, if you are looking for something for the kids at your "Feast", here is a link from a post I did last year with some neat printable Thankful placemats.

Toilets

This is what I found in our downstairs bathroom this morning:

sucked in

I feel as though I have been or am being sucked in to what some of you will think is that ridiculous world called American Girl. Oh, I get it. I used to think it was insane too. Too expensive. And now, here I am. Abby desperately wants one. We visited friends this weekend and she got to play with them some. Lily got to play with their baby doll version called "Bitty Babies". Oh, and how they loved them. So fun.

I fear how addictive this can be. Outfits and accessories.... more and more. (and for real, how much does Kit look like Abby?)

Who else is into it? (I know you are out there!)

Parenting and Brain Damage

I saw this on another blog and found it good for a laugh. It is old, but still hilarious.

Call me silly, but I can't wait.

Say what you want, I'm too interested in pop culture... whatever.

It looks awesome, and I KNOW I'm not alone. If you haven't read the books (it's a trilogy), you should. Matt and I both read them and we both can't wait to see the movie. If you weren't into Twilight, don't worry, this is nothing like it.

On a side note, I totally need to find a sitter so I can drag Matt to see Breaking Dawn, Part 1 next week. (sigh)

100 Acres

On Saturday, Matt and I took the girls to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to walk around and play at their outdoor art and nature park called 100 Acres. We first went there about a year ago for a school-sponsored day with Abby's school and loved it, but it was cold so we didn't stay as long or see it all. Saturday it was perfect and the girls were filled with energy that we were hoping to burn off. It was a lot of fun.

This is one of my favorite pictures. Lily looks so funny sitting up so high. (Matt is just outside the picture within reach.)

This skeleton (technically called "Funky Bones") is really cool.

You can climb all over it, and we did. At one point, the girls each started at a foot and, with a parent's help, we raced to the head.

This was the girls other favorite (called "Free Basket"). Abby loved straddling the arches. Then Lily got in on the fun.

These yellow benches, different kinds, are all over. We stopped at everyone we saw.

Cousins

My first adventure with Cake Pops

This week I made cake pops for the first time ever. I also ate my first cake pop for the first time ever. One of my own. :)

Based on my little bit of research there are 2 major ways to make them. You can either have a special pan or baking iron thing (like a waffle iron), or you mold them yourself (they're more like a truffle this way).

We did the second option. You bake a cake the normal way in a 13x9 pan and then crumble it up. Then, you mix in 3/4 of a can of frosting and roll that into balls. I used my cookie scoop to make it easier. Chill, dip in chocolate, and decorate.

I froze most of the balls to dip later, but here are our results....

Mornings aren't MAGICAL!

Finally breaking in my new mug. The back says, "Mornings aren't MAGICAL!" Love it.

Boo!

Happy Halloween!

I hope you had a great trick or treat! We sure did. Our afternoon here was gorgeous, so I took about an hour after Abby got home from school and did a little big of yard work since we were going to have a fair amount of people trooping up on our porch. I got quite a bit of stuff trimmed up.

While I worked, the girls played and Abby was on a mission to rake leaves into a good jumping pile. You should know that we don't really have any big trees in our yard because our neighborhood isn't very old. She did a pretty good job. (and some help jumping from Lily and a neighbor)

... and at last... Trick or Treat!

We had the cutest Garden Gnome and Cowgirl you ever did see!

Lily also LOVED passing out candy. When we finally moved in from our seats on the porch, everytime the doorbell rang, she would run for the door yelling "Trick or Treat!"

And here are our pumpkins....

This year each girl designed her own, and I used a drill on mine to create a polka dotted pumpkin (messy, but fun).