Christmas Nightlights

The girls and I had fun getting out our Christmas night lights.

I don't have "nice" pictures of them, just quick iPhone pictures, but we love them dearly and look forward to getting them out.  One makes us laugh, and one make us happy.  

(I should have to tell you which is which!)

Do you have any Christmas night lights?

My latest Pinterest knock-off

With Christmas season upon us and Pinterest browsing, I've been getting the crafting itch. I found a pin I wanted to try to recreate.

My latest project inspiration:

Source: ikea-download.de via Carrie on Pinterest

I visited The Dollar Tree for my supplies.  I didn't find "exactly" what I wanted, so it took me a few minutes to think through what colors I wanted to use. I ended up spending a grand total of $2 on ornaments.  -and I picked up some ribbon for $3 at Target (which I came no where close to using all of it).  Milo (the cat) can't be far away if there is ribbon out to gnaw on.


Yes, that means it cost me $5 to do this and I think it looks pretty good. :)

I did buy 2 other large ornaments that I use in the project. I ended up trying something new and hanging them outside in one of our small trees. We'll see how they last....

Any crafting at your house?

Pictures Downtown

We had "Christmas" family pictures taken the weekend before Thanksgiving.  They turned out beautiful.  We had a hard time deciding where we wanted to take them.  A park?  Downtown?  We ended up starting on the canal downtown, which is where Matt and I lived when we first moved to the city.  It is a beautiful area and we got really lucky on the weather.  We walked around a little and even ended up with some pictures with the Statehouse as our backdrop.  I don't want to share all of the pictures because some are on our Christmas cards, but here is one of my favorites that I just got put on a big canvas.

I love Lily's face in it.

And, my two beautiful girls.  We are so blessed.

Abby Hacker Photography

My Little Helper

My potato washer...

Our Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving week out on Tuesday with special programs at both of the girls' schools.

Lily's preschool had a special Grandparent's Day program, and since all of our grandparent's are out of state, we went!  There was a marionette show.  It was super fun.  The kids had a choice to go sit up front and Lily was up there right away.  She is the one with a gray shirt and pink pants- kind of in the back-center.

Then, we went home, had lunch, and went straight to Abby's school for her class' special Thanksgiving play, which was awesome.  They had different scenes all around the room.  Abby was part of the "modern table."

The Mayflower:

Then on Wednesday, we headed over to Ohio for Thanksgiving.  My sister ended up really sick on Thanksgiving.  We don't know if it was food poisoning or a stomach bug or what, but we got some time with my nephew Jacob....

The three littles watching a movie.  I don't think Jacob sits this still for very long but he had his cousins modeling for him.  :)  On a side note, one of the movies we watched was Arthur Christmas.  It was very cute.  I highly recommend it.

Grandma, Papa, Abby, and Lily made a homemade gingerbread house.  It was fabulous.  

By the end decorating phase, just Papa and Abby were left, but it is awesome.

...and last but not least... the wishbone.  It's the girls' first time doing it.  I had to explain it, which Abby understood.  She won her wish, but then Lily cheered and said she won too.  That's okay.  No losers here!

...now on to Christmas season!  I can't wait to get all our decorations up!

Veteran's Day Program

The second grade at Abby's school puts on a Veteran's Day program every year, so this year Abby got to participate.  Lily and I attended and it was an excellent program.

It started with floats that the second graders designed.  You could definitely tell which floats the boys created and which floats the girls did.  Here is Abby's team's.  They used American Girl dolls for theirs.  Abby brought in Kit to be the Statue of Liberty.  Doesn't she look great?  :)  You can see (kind of) behind theirs, one of the other floats with Army guys.  

Here is Abby getting lined up after her class came in.  She had a speaking part, so she got to be in the front row.  She was one of the first groups in, so that is why she looks like she's all by herself.  It filled in a lot.

Abby and Lily afterward.  We all wore red, white, and blue to honor the veterans.  We are so thankful for them.

Seeing the world through new eyes, including an awesome gymnastics show

So.  I have new eyes!  

Today marks one week post op since my LASIK surgery.  Woohoo!  No more glasses or contacts for me.  I do however, live with constant eyedrops now.

For those of you who are curious, the surgery was good.  I wasn't nervous at all.  I was more nervous about finding out if I qualified, and the post op.  You know, not messing it up afterwards since you have to be so careful (you do, for those of you who don't know).  The whole thing took less than 15 minutes.  That's actually how long Matt waited, so for me if was less than 10.  Most of the time at the office/surgery center we spent waiting.  It was a little uncomfortable, but it was so fast that you can't really complain too much.

The post op was a little worse than I thought it would be, if I'm being honest.  I was really sore the day of.  My doctor things it might be because my prescription was pretty bad and so that means they remove more tissue.  After the first day, I just felt really dry and like I had stuff in my eyes.  The thing is, you can't touch eyes, or run water over them.  Showers are tricky.  I finally washed my face in the shower (instead of at the sink) on Friday.  It was glorious.  Everyday gets better.  Now, I'm just really dry, which is a uncomfortable, but doable.  I've had two post op appointments and everything looks great.

~~~

On Friday night, we took the girls to see the Kellogg's Tour of Gymnastics Champions.  It had all the big names from the Olympic Gymnastics teams (unless they are currently injured).  

It was awesome.  

My pictures kind of stink, but we had a great time.  It wasn't like a competition.  It truly was a show, with music and dancing.  The girls got to see their favorites:  Gabby Douglas and Jordan Wieber;  and I got to see one of my favorites:  Aly Raisman.  Matt even got to see his fave:  the trampoline gymnasts.