Baseball and Ballet

Two days before Christmas!!

2009-12-23T17:05:00.001-05:00

Today was my last day of work and Brock and Ava's last day of school until January 4! I am so happy that we have a little break from our hectic work and school lives! Tonight Graig is having a poker night with his friends, usually they have it on Thursday nights but since Thursday is Christmas Eve they are having it tonight instead.

While he is doing that Ava and I are going to make Christmas cookies (the break and bake kind-ha ha) we still have SO many cookies from the cookie exhange party that we went to on Sunday night but Ava really wants to make cookies tonight so we will make some!! We might even make some more no-bake cookies, I posted the recipe here they are Brock's favorite and SO good!!

Tomorrow, on Christmas Eve Brock and Ava each get to open one present! Ava is going to open her Christmas dress, I LOVE it so much!! It looks similar to this one and even came with a little dress to match her American Girl Doll!! The best part is was only $22 for both dresses!! I got them at Burlington Coat Factory.

Brock's Christmas Eve gift is a comforter for his bedroom. We are going to let him pick it out and we will order it on Christmas eve. JC Penney has a TON of great options for tween boys so we are going to have him start by looking at that website. We are re-doing his bedroom over the Christmas break and we are finally putting a TV in his room (actually he is getting our old one and we are getting a new flatscreen tv for our living room as our family gift) Graig and I have looked at so many different TV's over the past few days, we finally ordered one yesterday. I also am going to paint Brock's room and his attached bathroom over break. He is going to pick out the color and I am a little nervous about that-ha ha!

Here are a couple that I think he will like. It will be fun to see what he decides!

I am WAY less stressed out about our holiday meals this year because I put Graig in charge of Christmas eve dinner and Christmas day lunch! I think he is actually excited about it! He is going to take the kids grocery shopping after work today to pick up stuff for both meals. My only request is shrimp cocktail. I LOVE that and so does Grandma Jan so I told him to not forget about the shrimp. He's a good cook so I trust him to make two delicious meals!! I am still going to make a breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning breakfast. We do that every year and I like that little menu! Ava can help me make both of those dishes tomorrow.

We are going to Christmas mass at 4pm tomorrow, Ava is going to be one of the dancing angels! She did it last year and it was just precious!! After church we will drive around and look at lights and go home and eat dinner and watch movies and wait for SANTA!!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!

Getting to know me-Christmas style!

2009-12-22T15:11:00.002-05:00

I saw this on another blog and I thought it would be fun to do this! I can't believe Christmas is two days away!! Christmas is my favorite time of year, I can't wait to start celebrating, we all have work/school tomorrow and then our Christmas vacation starts on Christmas Eve! We can't wait!!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
I prefer to use gift bags but Graig loves to see the kids unwrap their presents on Christmas morning so we use paper.
2. Real tree or artificial?
Artificial, I have 5 of them up in our house. You can see our trees this year here.
3. When do you put up the tree?
I like to put it up the day after Thanksgiving, this year we traveled to see my family on Thanksgiving so I put my trees up the weekend before Thanksgiving! It was SO nice to come home and have everything already decorated.
4. Do you like eggnog?
No, blech I hate it!!
5. Favorite gift received as a child?
My cabbage patch dolls and a set of twin dolls that came in a wicker basket with extra clothes, bottles, diapers, etc. I LOVED those twin dolls!!
6. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes, I have several but I only have one out this year. I rotate them. I also got a new one this year when I was visiting my family in Illinois!
7. Hardest person to buy for?
My Dad! My sister and I usually go together to get his gift. Last year we got him a GPS and this year we got him an engraved pocket watch.
8. Easiest person to buy for?
My sister Shelby!! We have similar tastes so she is SO fun to buy for!!
9. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail!! I LOVE getting cards in the mail!!
10. Favorite Christmas movie?
Christmas Vacation is SO funny!! I watch that over and over during the holidays!! It's a great movie!!
11. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
I shop year all year round when I see things I think people will like.
12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
I love going to parties and eating all the appetizers that everyone makes, I also love Christmas cookies!! Umm, no wonder I ALWAYS gain weight during the holidays-ha ha!!
13. Clear lights or colored lights on the tree?
I like clear and Brock and Ava like colored so we have both!
14. Favorite Christmas song?
Silent Night
15. Travel or stay home at Christmas?
I like to stay home on Christmas; if we travel we usually go at Thanksgiving. I think it's important for Brock and Ava to be at home on Christmas morning.
16. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
I think so...of course Rudolph is my favorite!!
17. Angel on tree top or star?
We have a star on top of our main Christmas tree
18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Morning?
We open one on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning!
19. The most annoying thing about this time of year?
I think that people always seemed stressed out (including me!!) We should all relax and enjoy the holiday season; it only comes around once a year! The Shabby Chic Cottage had a great post on this topic today
20. What I love most about Christmas?
I love EVERYTHING the lights, the parties, the presents, going to church on Christmas Eve, being so excited about seeing Brock and Ava open their presents on Christmas morning that I'm usually too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve, Christmas music, Christmas crafts, Christmas cookies, Christmas movies... I could go on and on!!

Who does this??

2009-12-18T22:19:00.000-05:00

Christmas is a week away and we have a ton of things to do this weekend and tonight after work I decided to start painting our Sunroom! We are going to move our furniture around in our house because our big family Christmas gift this year is a big flat screen tv. The couches that I am moving to our sunroom are red and our sunroom is painted red so I need to paint the sunroom before we can move our furniture. I got one whole section of the room done tonight! I decided to paint it Svelte Sage which the Nester talked about on her blog. It's a beautiful color not too dark, not too light and I think it will really warm up our Sunroom! I use Behr paint at Home Depot so I went there tonight after work and they were able to match the color exactly! I got their paint and primer and one and I LOVE it!! I don't think I will ever go back to regular paint-ever!!

Here is a sample of the color, I will show the room when I am completely done, I hope to finish it up this weekend!

Tomorrow is a busy day Ava and I are going with our neighbors to watch the Nutcracker in the afternoon and then tomorrow evening we have 2 Christmas parties to attend. The first party is a Cookie exchange it's at my friend's house and it's going to be HUGE, 90 people are coming! Children are invited so some of those 90 are kids but still that's a TON of people. After that party we are going to another Christmas party, so it will be a fun filled Saturday before Christmas!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

2009-12-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday after work I took Ava to gymnastics practice. While she was there I started wrapping her "Santa gifts"! I am going to wrap a few each time I am home alone so we aren't stressed out on Christmas eve wrapping a bunch of gifts. I am almost officially done shopping!! I am SO happy. I have to get my Mom's birthday present (her birthday is on Christmas day!) and I have to get one more present for a friend.

I am completely finished shopping for Brock and Ava!! Things have been a lot easier this year for Christmas. Graig and I are not exchanging gifts instead we are getting a big flat screen tv for our living room. We are re-doing Brock's room as his big gift and Ava wanted American girl doll stuff so I ordered that online. I exhanged gifts with my side of the family when Brock and I went to Illinois for Thanksgiving and Graig takes care of his side of the family.

Last night after I picked Ava up from gymnastics we went to meet my interns for our end of the semester dinner. We had a great time. They have worked SOO hard this semester so it was nice just to be able to relax and share a meal together! They got me some nice gifts which I was not expecting at all! They are really sweet! I took some pictures from my i-phone, sorry about the terrible quality

My interns Amanda, Jason and Sami with Ava.

They got me some berries and cinnamon sticks so I put them in this candle holder. They smell SOOOO good!!

They also got me some adorable boxes which I put in our living room! Yes those are Roman Shades and yes they were a part of the huge recall, I counted and we have 20 of them in our house! I am going to have to call and get that repair kit soon!!

When we got home I spent a little time organizing my make-up (exciting life I lead, I know-ha ha) I use Bare Minerals and they are sooo messy!! My sister got me this cute Longaberger basket as part of my Christmas gifts this year so I am going to keep my bare minerals make up in this basket.

And since I was taking pictures here is Ava with her American Girls Dolls Emma and Allison. She loves them so much! They go everywhere with us! You can't tell in this picture but they have little Ugg boots that I got at a craft show for $5 each, they are adorable!!

Tonight I am going to watch in his last 7th grade basketball game and then I am going out to dinner with some friends! It will be a fun night!

Candles and Ava's cookie party

2009-12-15T19:26:00.001-05:00

Sunday Ava had her cookie party! This is the second year she has had one. Last year I went all out with cute cookie containers and fancy sprinkles and other cookie decorations. You can read about last year's cookie party here and here. This year we invited more kids and siblings of her friends so we had way more people but it was less fancy. I think it was more fun this year! I did make some snacks but we also ordered pizza for lunch. I only took a few pictures of the party this year but you can see Ava and her friends had a great time!

I also took out the ornaments that I had in these glass hurricanes and added fresh cranberries. I got the idea from another blog and I did a post about it here. I had fresh cranberries in another candle that I had out last Christmas and they lasted a long time so I think these will last until at least New Years and by then I am sure I will want to change them again anyway!

I also love these little snowflake candle holders that I got from Crate and Barrel. I think they look so sweet on our dining room table.

And last but not least a picture of our dog Cotton! Ava took this picture and I found it when I was uploading pictures. He looks so handsome in his little sweater. He wears this all winter because he HATES putting clothes on-ha ha! So he will wear this until spring.

Happy Tuesday!!

Joy!

2009-12-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

Ava LOVES to wear her hair wavy like me but the poor thing has stick straight hair, it has no wave to it at all. I told her that she is SO lucky and that people pay big bucks to have their hair straight. She always wants me to make it wavy which is quite a process. We have to put foam rollers and she has to sleep in them. Since she likes wavy hair she never complains. While she was sleeping last night I took this picture of her, I thought she looked so cute in her shower cap that she wears over her curlers. So sweet!!

While I was busy curling Ava's hair Graig was busy playing with Daisy. He loves hanging out with Daisy!!

Tonight when I got home I did this quick Christmas project. I saw it on another blog last year ( I don't remember which one-sorry!!) Anyway, I already had the letters which I just painted and then I put red and white scrapbook paper in the frames and took out the glass. I put the finished product in our sunroom. I really liked the way it turned out!

Happy Monday! This week is SO quiet at work because finals started today. We had our finals lunch with our students which was really fun, I ate WAAAAY to much!! I also picked up our Christmas cards today and started working on mailing those out. .They are so cute this year!!

Christmas Tour!

2009-12-13T22:25:00.002-05:00

Today I am doing the Christmas Tour with the Nester today!! I did this last year too and it was so much fun to see how everyone decorates for Christmas! I LOVE decorating our house, I put up our decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving because I love having them out. I think they make our house look so warm and welcoming, I like to have them out as long as I can!

We will start with our Christmas trees, we have 5 in our house! They are ALL artificial, I hate the mess of real trees. I do spray the balsam tree spray from B&BW everyday because I love the Christmas tree smell!

Welcome to our Christmas home tour!

Let's start in our living room we have our biggest tree in there. I get SO many compliments on this tree so many people think it's real. I got it last year at Wally World. I have white lights on this tree, I don't do theme trees I just like using lots of different ornaments that we have collected over the years. My favorite ornaments are the ones that Brock and Ava have made at school and church!

Also in our living room is our fireplace and mantle, Ava wanted to use colored lights on our mantle this year so I got some colored lights this year! We also put our Christmas cards on our fireplace, it's fun to see the different ones that we get each year!

I got these glass jars this year from Ballard Designs this year, I love changing the stuff inside of them for the different seasons. I got all of these ornaments (and more!) at a garage sale last summer. I love the shape and color of them!

Poinsetta in our living room that I bought right after Thankgiving at Wally World, I got the sign at Gordman's when we were in Illinois for Thanksgiving. I wish we had a Gordman's here! I LOVE that store :)

The Christmas village that my Dad collected and then gave to us, Ava loves helping me put this out every year.

Christmas candle on our entertainment center

Another Christmas candle on our mantle (can you tell I like candles-ha ha!)

Brock and Ava LOVE colored lights so in our office we have a smaller tree with colored lights. They love it!

In our Dining Room we have a small tree and some other cute Christmas decorations

My friend bought me this snowman at a Craft show, I LOVE it!

Snowflakes hanging from our dining room light

Our dining room cabinet, I like changing this out for the different seasons too!

I don't have a tree in our Sunroom but I do have a few festive snowmen! I like getting a new snowman every year. I haven't gotten one this year but I'm sure I will at some point!

Brock and Ava have little trees in their rooms too! Ava likes helping me decorate her tree every year. Brock likes the tree in his room but he doesn't like decorating it (umm, he is JUST like his Dad!!)

Ava's tree is pink with green, bright pink, and ice blue ornaments and ribbon

Brock's tree is navy blue with red and silver ornaments and bows.

I hope you liked our Christmas tour! I love looking at how other people decorate their houses for Christmas and I can't wait to go through all the houses to see how everyone decorated this year!

Have a good week!!

Show us your life-Christmas recipes!!

2009-12-10T21:37:00.001-05:00

Today Kelly's Show Us Your Life is Christmas goodies/cookies! I LOVE baking at Christmas time. But I don't have a lot of time so I like to make good, quick treats! I am going to show two today, they are both super easy and very tasty!! Try them you will love them and they don't take any time at all to make!

These are Brock's favorite cookies of all time. He has started to help me make them, I really like that he likes baking with me :) I am going to a cookie exchange party next weekend and I am going to make these cookies they are ALWAYS a hit!

No Bake Cookies

2 cups white sugar

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
1.In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa. Bring to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter, oats, and vanilla. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool until hardened

My next recipe is Puppy Chow. I made this in high school Home Ec class and I have made it every Christmas since then! I LOVE it!! I could eat a whole batch-ha ha! Earlier this week I made it for some of the college students I work with, they really liked it too!

Puppy Chow

1/2 cup butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 (17.5 ounce) package Corn Chex
1 pound confectioners' sugar

Directions

1.Melt the peanut butter with the butter or margarine and the milk chocolate in the microwave. Pour over the cereal and toss until well coated.
2.Place the coated cereal in a large tupperware container then add the confectioners' sugar, shake to coat.

I hope you enjoy these recipes!! I can't wait to check out the other holiday recipes at Kelly's blog this weekend.

A quick project!

2009-12-10T12:34:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday night I went over to my friend Sabrina's house to hang out because our husbands were in a poker tournament. I decided to take over a quick project that I have been wanting to work on. I saw this idea on another blog and I thought it turned out SO cute!!! I wanted to try one.

You take a frame ( I used an 8x10 frame) and wrap pine garland around it. I used almost 2 18 ft. garlands from the Dollar Tree for this wreath! Then I got our monogram from Wal-Mart and I got a wooden monogram. I still have to paint the E (it came white) I want to paint it red. Anyway, I am so happy with the way it turned out!
I have it in our dining room. I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I feel like I have SO much cute Christmas and winter decorations that I can't display them all. Graig says I need to stop shopping-ha ha! I don't really even buy a lot of new stuff I just get a few new things each year. It adds up!

I still haven't taken our family Christmas card picture because on Tuesday Ava had pink eye! The poor thing, it is just now clearing up. Brock and Ava were super excited yesterday because they had the first SNOW DAY of the school year!! I stayed home from work and they spent most of the day playing with our kids from our neighborhood.

Tonight Brock has his Chorus concert and then we are going to come homw and watch the Office Christmas show. I can't wait!!

Monday Monday!!!

2009-12-07T17:10:00.003-05:00

Today has been a BUSY day like all Mondays. I really do enjoy Monday's though because I love starting a new work week and getting Brock and Ava back into their weekly routine. I also like having a big to-do list for the week and every day I do a little until it's all done and then I can enjoy the weekend!!
My to-do list this week includes:
1. Our Christmas cards!!! Our Christmas letter is done but I haven't taken a good picture of Brock and Ava for our Christmas card, I need to get that finished this week
2. Ava's cookie party invitations, I need to get these mailed out ASAP because her Cookie Party is going to be on Sunday from 12-3. Last year she had her first cookie party. You can read about it here. I also need to bake ALL of the cookies for the party. I have a new sugar cookie recipe from Better Homes and Gardens that I want to try so I will post it if the cookies turn out good!!
3. We also need to get our outside lights up! Usually we have them up by now but it's been so cold and nasty here lately we haven't had a chance. Everyone else on our street has them up so we look like the Scrooge house-ha ha!!
I think that's about all but I think that list will keep us busy this week. I want to get a lot done this week because next weekend we have 2 Christmas parties to go to and Ava's cookie party! I LOVE the holidays but we are super busy in December!!

Brock and Ava's Christmas trees!!

2009-12-06T21:14:00.001-05:00

I finally got Brock and Ava's Christmas trees decorated this weekend. I got the trees for $15 each last year at Wal-Mart. Brocks is navy blue and Ava has pink. Ava LOVES helping me decorate her tree and Brock said he didn't mind having a tree in his room as long as he didn't have to decorate it OR help take it down-ha ha! He sounds just like Graig.

I had Ava take the pictures of the trees because I was talking on the phone with my friend. Brock's tree looks crooked in the picture. I promise it isn't really crooked, I think it's the way she took the picture!

Ava's tree is pink with silver, green and teal blue ornaments. I also put some silver, green and pink bows on it. I think it turned out really cute!

Brock's tree is navy and has red and silver ornaments on it. It's not 100% decorated yet, I still want to get a few more ornaments to go on it. I think his tree looks cute too!

I didn't do an advent calendar this year so the week before Christmas I might put a little present under their trees every night after they go to sleep. I think they would LOVE that!

Christmas Greens

2009-12-05T08:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to our town's garden club Christmas sale. They had SUCH beautiful arrangements, wreaths and centerpieces. I got there early and there were SO many different ones to choose from! I knew that I wanted a centerpiece because I already have Christmas wreaths for our front and side doors.

I found two that I liked. One larger one for our dining room table and then I also fell in love with a small one that I will keep in our kitchen.

Here is the one for our dining room table.

I LOVE this sweet little one, I am going to keep it in the kitchen.

I also got some Spider Plant starters for $1! Spider plants are so easy to take care of, that's why I like them :)

Then last night I went to a Girls Night Out and we made our own Christmas Greens! It was a lot of fun everyone made beautiful arrangements! I made two small arrangements. I think I am going to put one in our downstairs bathroom (since I never put any Christmas decorations in there!) and I am not sure what I am going to do with the other one yet.

Here is the two that I made. I really like the way they turned out, they didn't take too long to make.

Today we have a busy day ahead!! Ava has dance and she is making her First Confession and church and Brock has a basketball game and then he's going to a birthday party sleepover tonight! Graig is having his friends over for poker tonight so Ava and I are going over to hang out with my friend Sabrina and her daughter Eliza.

Have a good weekend!

Show us your life-Christmas Trees!

2009-12-04T08:15:00.000-05:00

Today Kelly is hosting a Show us your life featuring Christmas Trees!! I love our trees and this year I put them up weekend before Thanksgiving since we were gone Thanksgiving week visiting my family in Illinois. We have 5 trees in our house! I go a little overboard with trees but I LOVE them and I think they add so much sparkle and Christmas spirit to our house.

I don't use real trees (which makes Graig sad because he spent his high school and college years working on a Christmas tree farm!) because the first year we lived in our house our live tree fell over right on top of Brock!! Graig was at work so Brock and I threw the tree out the front door and we haven't used a real tree since! BTW, it's REALLY hard to get a good picture of a Christmas tree so I took some with my flash, some without to try to get a good picture :)

Here is our big tree in the living room. This takes so long to get up every year but I think it looks so pretty when it's all done. I don't have themed trees I just use lots of different ornaments and lots of different colors. Whenever we go on vacations or trips I get an ornament so we have all of those ornaments on this tree too. My favorite ornaments are the ones Brock and Ava have made at school and church!

This is the tree in our office which is right next to our dining room. We have big windows in there and you can see this tree from the street. Brock and Ava love colored lights so this tree has covered lights. We put presents under this tree for our extended family and friends basically everyone who isn't going to be at our house on Christmas morning.

This is the little tree in our dining room. This is the LAST tree I take down every year. I think it's so sweet. This year I did this tree in a red and green theme.

Brock and Ava also have trees in their rooms. Ava has a PINK one and Brock has a navy blue one. I will show you pictures of those next week when they are all decorated!

It will be fun to look through Kelly's blog and see everyone's trees this weekend!

Thanksgiving week!!

2009-11-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

Brock and I got home from Illinois yesterday. We had a fun time but we were VERY tired yesterday!! We had to get up at 4am yesterday to get to the airport on time to fly home. During our trip we did a lot of eating, and shopping. We also watched two movies, The Christmas Carol (which was awful!!) and The Blind Side, which is one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time.

We joked that all of the pictures that we took were taken around a table because we were ALWAYS eating! I probably gained at least 10 lbs from all of the eating that we did during our trip. I also picked up a few little Christmas presents for Ava. She LOVES opening presents so I got her a few things on our trip. I also bought her Christmas dress which has a matching dress for her American Girl doll. She will LOVE it!! We are going to let her open it on Christmas Eve so she can wear it to church.

Here are some pictures from our trip. I forgot my camera so all of these are from my sister Shelby's facebook page (Thanks Shelby!!). I am not sure why these pictures are so small, she also posted about our trip on her blog

Brock and I during one of our MANY meals out. As you can see he is having a great time-ha ha!

My sister Shelby with her mother-in-law Linda.

Me feeding the animals carrots at an outdoor light display that we visited. The light display is the largest in the country and has over 1 million lights!

My sister's husband Ryan and Brock at yet another meal out

Me at Hobby Lobby. I LOVE that store and we don't have one were we live.

My sister Shelby and me

We had a great time visiting with my family but we are glad to be home. We spent the day today getting ready for the week ahead.

Copy Cat

2009-11-23T16:35:00.002-05:00

I LOVE getting home decorating ideas from other blogs! I was not blessed with a lot of creativity so blogs are a great way for me to get tons of decorating tips! Last week Melissa from 320 Syacamore did a great post on how to make these adorable hurricane candle holders like the ones from Williams Sonoma using Dollar Tree supplies!! The post she wrote is here. Since I live in a small town we don't have a lot of stores but we do have the Dollar Tree! So as soon as I read this post I ran over there to see if they had the supplies to make these and they did! I was SO happy!!

Here are the Williams Sonoma ones, they are really beautiful but they are $80!! I can't imagine spending that much on candle holders!

Photo from Williams Sonoma

Here are the ones that I made using the exact supplies that Melissa outlined in her post. They were $3 each! Here they are on our dining room table. I LOVE the way they turned out and they took less than 5 minutes to make! I love crafts like that :)

I am going to make a few more sets of these for Christmas gifts! Thanks Melissa for the great idea!!

Weekend update!

2009-11-22T16:09:00.000-05:00

We had a busy weekend! We are getting ready for our Thanksgiving trips and I got all of the inside decorating done for Christmas! Here's a little wrap up of our weekend.

Friday-Brock had a basketball game and Ava and I went to craft club. We had fun and ate tons of great food!! The craft was Advent calendars but I didn't even make one! I tried to make one but I really don't have any room for it so I make a garland instead. My friend Sabrina made a really cute one and I will take a picture to show next time I go to her house.

Saturday-Was a really busy morning!! Ava started off going to cheerleading, while she was there I went to watch Brock's basketball game, then I left at half time to pick Ava up and we went to her retreat for first penance at church, then she had ballet. I spent the afternoon and evening decorating our house for Christmas. Ava had 3 friends sleepover and Brock had 1 of his friends sleepover so we had a houseful!!

Sunday-Ava went to Sunday school, and I spent the whole day finishing up our Christmas decorations. I still have to do Brock and Ava's little trees and Graig needs to do the outside lights but other than those few things we are ALL done with Christmas decorating!! I also packed a little for our trip to Illinois! We are also having our family Thanksgiving dinner tonight since we won't be home for Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

A light and the end of the tunnel!!

2009-11-18T21:35:00.000-05:00

Work has been SO busy lately, today I had one of my last big events of the semester and I am SO happy!! Today was our Faculty Reception where each of our Greek organizations get to choose 2 faculty members to honor. I have been doing this event for 10 years and this year's event was the best! The students did a great job honoring their faculty members and the faculty members were so thankful and happy to be recognized.
Here is a picture of all of the faculty that were honored today with the Greek Council scholarship chair that coordinated the event.

I got a special surprise when my 4 interns from this semester gave me an award! That was so sweet of them! I have had a great time with them this semester and they have all done SO much work in my office. I am so grateful to have had them this semester!
Here is a picture of us at the reception

They also gave me these beautiful flowers today! I think they are so pretty :)

Tonight I went with some friends to a wine tasting event that was held at a resturant in town. We sampled 5 different wines and had 5 different dishes to go along with them. I had never been to an event like this but it was really fun, I learned a lot about different types of wine. This was a really fun event!
Here is a picture of my friends and I at the Wine Tasting

Weekend update!!

2009-11-16T18:52:00.000-05:00

This weekend went by soooo fast!! I can't believe how fast weekends go. I feel like all Graig and I do is drive Brock and Ava around to their activities, and try to run around and get stuff done that we don't get a chance to do during the week.

Saturday Brock went to the Boys and Girls club all day to play basketball, he LOVES basketball!! Saturday night he went to the skating rink and then he had 2 of his friends sleepover. Ava went to a birthday party for her friend Maria. I was able to do a little decorating for Christmas, I felt like it was a little early but since we are going away for Thanksgiving this year I wanted to get started working on it. I still have a lot to do next weekend!

I love these Christmas ornaments in our glass jars.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Sunday-Ava had a birthday party for her friend Madelyn. It was an American Girl theme and Ava said it was the BEST birthday party ever! Sunday evening Ava went with me to work. I was a judge for the Mr and Miss Oneonta pageant. Ava LOVED all the attention that she got from the college students. She had a great time and even took some pictures with the winners!

This picture was at the very end of the night and Miss Oneonta had already changed out of her dress but she still took a picture with Ava, as you can tell Ava was thrilled!!

When we got home I had to make 8 dozen cookies for Ava's dance school. Brock helped me because I was making his favorite cookies, no bakes! I will post the recipe soon. It is so easy and the cookies are soooo good!! He said for Christmas he wants me to make him a whole batch so he can eat them all by himself!

Have a good week!!

Sister Crafts

2009-11-14T17:31:00.002-05:00

My sister Shelby and I are getting together for Thanksgiving and we want to do some cute craft projects together! We are going to be together for 4 days during Thanksgiving and we want to do 4 craft projects. The projects that we are going to make need to be small and light because I have to take them with me on the plane. We will have easy access to a Hobby Lobby and Michaels so getting craft supplies together should be pretty easy and fun!!

We are each going to think of 2 crafts to make. I am thinking of making tassels like the Nester makes and a swag garland like this. But I want to make one using Christmas colors!

I can't wait to see what crafts my sister picks out for us to do!!

TGIF!!!

2009-11-13T18:37:00.000-05:00

I am SO happy that it's Friday! This has been such a long week! Graig was out of town for two days and work was CRAZY busy! I am ready for a relaxing weekend. Tonight after work I got my hair cut, I LOVE the way she cut it, I get it cut every 8 weeks and my next appointment isn't until 2010!

Tomorrow was suppose to be Brock's first 7th grade basketball game but the team his school was playing is closed due to illness so he doesn't have a game tomorrow.

Ava has cheerleading and ballet. It's watch week so I get to watch her tomorrow during her ballet!

This weekend Ava has two birthday parties to go to and I have to make 8 dozen cookies for Ava's dance school! I also want to put away all of our fall stuff and start getting out our Christmas stuff!! So we should have a fun weekend!

Chicken and Rice Casserole

2009-11-10T21:36:00.000-05:00

I made this delicious Chicken and Rice casserole last night for dinner, it is great!! I got it from Paula Dean on the Food Network site. You can go here to get more great recipes from Food Network. I LOVE Paula Dean but her dishes can be so fattening, I did make a few changes to this recipe to keep the calories and fat content a little lower, but I think my version came out just as good!

photo from foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, peeled and diced (everyone in my family besides me HATES onion so I left this out)
3 cups diced, cooked chicken ( I used 3 chicken breasts that I cooked in the crock pot)
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans green beans, drained and rinsed
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can condensed cream of celery soup (I used cream of chicken soup)
1 cup mayonnaise ( I used 1/2 cup of light mayo and it worked fine)
1 (6-ounce) box long-grain wild rice, cooked according to package directions
1 cup grated sharp Cheddar
Pinch salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Heat butter or oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl.
Add all remaining ingredients to bowl and mix together until thoroughly combined.
Pour into a greased 3-quart casserole dish. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand for a few minutes before serving

This was so good and a very easy weeknight meal, I will make this recipe again!

Watch Week!

2009-11-09T20:21:00.000-05:00

This week is Watch Week at Ava's dance studio! I got to watch 3 of her classes tonight, it was a lot of fun! Her schedule for Mondays is Hip Hop, Tap and Lyrical. Poor thing she goes from one class to the next she doesn't get a break in between her classes. She is SO tired when she gets home on Monday nights!
I did take some pictures of her tonight but they didn't turned out really dark so here are some pictures that I took of her last year during dance.

Ava with her dance teacher Jill right after the Christmas dance show

Ava with her friend Gracie before the end of year show in June

Beautiful Ballerinas! Before the show last June

Ava with two friends at their dress rehersal in June!

I also get to watch her do Jazz on Friday night and Ballet on Saturday morning. This should be a fun week!!

Sunday sneak peak

2009-11-08T22:05:00.000-05:00

Today was a VERY productive day! I LOVE days like that. Brock was at a friends house, Ava spent the day with Grandma Jan and Graig was watching football at his friends house so I had the WHOLE house to myself! I spent the day cleaning and organizing, it was fabulous! I finally got to clean Ava's playroom in the attic, it has been a wreck for such a long time! I also organized my craft area in the basement and took 2 naps! I am still not 100% better from when I was sick and I get tired SO easily. I took a nap this afternoon and another little one earlier this evening. I am happy to finally be going back to work tomorrow!

Here's a sneak peak of a project that I started today, I hope to finish this project this week!

Happy Sunday!

Christmas Swap!!!

2009-11-07T18:03:00.000-05:00

Clemsongirl is hosting a Christmas swap!! I participated last year and it was SO much fun!! I am participating again this year and I can't wait to shop for presents for my swap partner!! You can go to her site to get all the details about the swap, the deadline to sign up is next weekend. Here are my gifts from last year's swap, I love all the sweet gifts I got!

Have a good weekend!!

Show us your life-Thanksgiving Traditions!!!

2009-11-06T13:06:00.000-05:00

Today Kelly's Korner is doing a "show us your life-thanksgiving traditions! So I thought I would share our traditions. I LOVE Thanksgiving! It seems like each year we do something a little different. Two years in a row we went to NYC to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, last year we spent Thanksgiving Day at home, and this year Brock and I are going to Illinois to visit my family and Ava and Grandma Jan are going to Colorado to see Uncle Garth while Graig stays home to work.

We will have Thanksgiving Dinner together as a family this year the weekend before we leave and these are two dishes that I am going to make

Rice, broccoli, cheese casserole ( I LOVE this!)
1 onion dices
3 tbsp. butter
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup milk
1 (10oz) pkg frozen broccoli
1/2 lb. velvetta cheese, cut up into squares
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
Saute onion in butter. Combine with remaining ingredients in a greased 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Makes 8 servings

Double layer pumpkin pie (my Dad's recipe) sooooo good!!
4 oz. cream cheese (softened)
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon cold milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 8 oz. tub of cool whip
1 prepared graham cracker crust
1 can (16 oz.) pumpkin
2 pkg (4 serving size) instant vanilla pudding and pie mix
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp, ground ginger

In a large bowl mix cream cheese, 1 tablespoon milk, and sugar with wire whisk until smooth. Stir in 1 1/2 cups whipped topping spead on bottom of crust.
In a second bowl stir pumpkin, pudding mix and spices unto remaining milk, beat with wire whisk until well blended (mixture will be thick) spead over cream cheese layer
Refigerate 5 hours serve with remaining whipped topping.

I just found this thankfulness jar on etsy so I ordered it today, I think it will make a nice addition to our Thanksgiving table this year! I want us each to write down some things we are thankful for and then we can put them in the jar and talk about them during our Thanksgiving meal.

Some of Ava's turkey artwork from last year

Our Thanksgiving Table last year.

Have a good weekend!!