Saturday

This morning Ava danced in the Christmas parade.  She was a Santa it was SO cute but this is the only picture I got.  She told her dance teacher that she wanted the warmest costume so she got the Santa suit.

Brock has been sick so today I made us  best corn and potato chowder.  I found the recipe on pinterest from the Mama Loves food blog.  Her blog is great and has a ton of great recipes.  I added it to my favorites list and will be visiting her blog often!

This afternoon I finished cleaning up all my flowerbeds and I put up our Christmas lights.  It was a beautiful day (and I know we don't have many left) so I wanted to get it done today.  After working outside I came in and took a nap and TOTALLY forgot that I had a parent meeting for the Nutcracker!  Today was the hair meeting (I'm serious) where we learn how to do our daughter's hair for the part they have.  I am SO thankful Ava is a boy in the Nutcracker so she will just wear her hair back in a bun.

I also finally finished the bench I got during my girl's weekend in Vermont. It is adorable!  I love the tangerine fabric that I got at Joanne Fabrics.  I spraypainted the wood with a black gloss. It was NASTY when I bought it but I think it turned out really cute!

I also hung up this ribbon wreath that I made.  I love the fall colors.  This week I'm going to get out our Christmas decorations but I'm not going to put them up until the day after Thanksgiving.  I want to keep our fall decorations out as long as possible!

Thursday randomness!

The week after Thanksgiving I have a conference for work in St. Louis so I'm going a few days before to spend some time with my family before the conference.  I'm going to see my Dad and Vicki and my sister Shelby and Ryan and their little Ainsley.  I told Ava that I wasn't going to spend too much time with my family since it's a work trip but she's still SO sad that she can't go with me.  She went up to bed while I was talking to my sister last night and I found this note :(

I love pinterest  and found a picture of a hot chocolate station for the kitchen. I thought it was a really cute idea so I made one for our kitchen tonight.  I think Brock and Ava are going to love it!

For the past few weeks Graig has been coughing and coughing and he has been really tired.  He hates going to the doctor and missing work so he thought he would get better after a few days.  Fast forward three weeks he's still coughing so this morning he FINALLY went to the doctor and he has bronchitis.  The doctor put him on three different medicines so I hope that he will be better soon.

Graig has been doing a lot of this for the past few weeks...he would NOT like this picture so I hope he doesn't read this blog post-ha ha! 

Our bookstore on campus has some cute hats and jewerly so I went and got some Christmas presents today and I got a few things for myself- this is a terrible iPhone picture but I love my new chevron hat!

 

Happy Thursday!

Watch Week!

Last week Ava had parent watch week at ballet.   Watch week is where parents get to watch their kids during their dance class.  Usually parents aren't allowed to watch the classes.  Even when Ava was 3 they shut the door and wouldn't let us to watch so I loved the week when they actually let us watch!  Of course then I could take as many pictures as I wanted and now Ava is SO embarrassed that I am even there so I only got to snap a few pictures with my phone.  Thankfully I have been going to watch weeks for years so I have a few blog posts like this one, and this one with some better pictures. 

Happy Monday!

Brock's best day

Today the new modern warfare game was released.  Millions of teenage boys raced to the store to get their hands on this new game.

  According to the girl that check us out, at midnight our Wally World had a huge line to buy this game.  Thankfully Brock and I went at 6:30 this morning and there was no line. We make him buy all of his own video games so he used his hard earned  paper route money to buy this game. 

Here is us in the parking lot (no I wasn't showered or ready to go to work but I did make it on time!).  Brock is looking so embarrassed! I told him I wanted a few pics for the blog-ha ha!

I also took a picture of him by the MW display.  He told me that he wish that everyone who reads this blog could see what he is saying before the picture was taken.  It goes like this:

me-Brock smile I want a nice picture of you
Brock-Mom you are SO embarrassing who takes pictures at Wal Mart
me-Brock you had better smile or I am not getting this game for you and we are not going out to breakfast
Brock-Fine take ONE and only ONE.  If it's not good we're not taking another one
me-if I don't get a good picture we are not leaving this store

He has to be at school at 7:30 so after we got his game we went to breakfast at McD.  We both got pancakes they were delish.

I'm sure we won't see him at all tonight because he'll be playing his new game!

Thanksgiving Decorations!

I love decorating for holidays especially fall holidays!  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year and I always like to add a little Thanksgiving flair to our home.  Here are some decorations from this year. 

I LOVE this platter!  I got it at an auction last summer.  It's really old so I won't actually use it to put our turkey on but I like the way it looks on our dining room hutch. 

If you've been reading my blog you know I love decorating our hutch for every season and holiday.  This is what it looks like all decorated for Thanksgiving. 

Brock made this turkey in kindergarten and I still get it out every year.  It's little head fell off this year and I had to staple it back on. It's so sweet.  I'm always going to put it out. 

This is the little cart I made for our kitchen.  The lower shelf has serving platters, the middle shelf holds Brock and Ava's snacks for their lunches and I like decorating the top shelf.  I got the Give Thanks sign at TJ Maxx. 

 My Mom got me 2 of these Thanksgiving placemats a few years ago.  I think they are adorable! 

Linking up to:

http://www.craftomaniac.blogspot.com/

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Hot Dog!

This weekend has been SO busy!  I had to work on Friday evening and all day yesterday.  I coordinate a leadership development conference every year  for freshman and sophomore students and the conference was this weekend.  I have been working on planning this conference since August and it's always fun to plan but I'm SO glad it's over!  I was SO tired last night when I got home and today after church and Sunday school I have been getting things done so we are ready for the week.

Here is a picture of all the students at the conference.

A picture of Ava from Halloween  was featured this week in our campus newspaper and on our College website. A student photographer snapped this picture during the Halloween carnival before Trick or Treating on campus.She tucked her hands inside her costume so she looked like a real hot dog-ha ha!

Tonight I am going to start reading this book that I bought a few weeks ago.  It's usually just our little family and Grandma Jan for Thanksgiving but I still want to make it a special meal for us.  I hope this book gives me lots of good ideas!

Trick or Treat!

Last Friday we went trick or treating on campus.  We go every year and it's always fun.  This year we went with our neighbors and some of Ava's friends from school.
We went to Target a few weeks ago to look for costumes.  Ava found a hot dog costume and begged me to get it for her. She loves dressing up as food for Halloween.  Last year she dressed up as grapes.  Ava's BFF also names Ava dressed up as skittles and her other BFF Anika dressed up as a monster.

There was also a tiny baby dressed up like hotdog so Ava and the baby took a picture together.  Big hot dog and mini hot dog!

  Uncle Garth and Aunt Jill are visiting from Colorado so we are going out to dinner with them tonight.  Happy Thursday!