Favorite Christmas Memories of 2009...

This year there was a lot of snow that was keeping us from getting up to my sister-in-laws place the day after Christmas, so we postponed the trip until the following day (Sunday). When we first got there we started unloading the car full of presents and placing them under the beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the room just off the side of the living room.

The house was so cozy and warm where my husband's grandparents were waiting inside. There were many little simple decorations that made it feel like Christmas (such as the holly berry wreath hanging on the front door which I really like!)


And the table was all set with beautiful and tasty treats; scrapple meat, Strada's, muffins and fruit... cinnamon buns and fruit tarts.... yummm! The perfect Sunday brunch!


This is one of my favorite pictures during the meal... it looks like something out of a Dr. Seus book :)


Then it came time to open the gifts. My nephew had fun passing them out to everyone...


... and we had fun watching him.


My nephew loved the Tractor, Dump Truck and Tractor movie that his great-grandpa got him, and wanted to play with them the whole time we were opening gifts.



This year one of the big gifts I got Spencer were his Vibram Five Finger shoes which he has been loving! He wears them every chance he gets... even in the snow! They make pretty cool impressions in the snow... it looks like there's either someone running around without their shoes on, or Bigfoot is on the loose. I guess it's only a matter of time before he realizes this and decides to prank the elementary school kids (being that a school is right across the street from our house).


This is the great hat that my mom and dad got me for Christmas, and the tuque I got for Spencer as one of his stocking stuffers.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all you readers out there, from our family to yours!

Cold One Day Snow The Next Day...

On Sunday afternoon, we went out to brunch and there were a few little snowflakes here and there, nothing too big, but by dinner time we had about 1 inch of snow. We had my nephew over, so Spencer and I took him sledding a bit, but the snow wasn't sticky enough to make a snowman.

Since Sunday evening, it has since snowed so much more then I was expecting, in such a short time.

The Tuesday morning I went to the post office to drop off a package... only a few blocks away, but I got stuck coming out of the parking lot, going up the hill... a very slight incline. I ended up having to go down the hill, and go all the way around to drive on the compacted or main streets that were a bit flatter. I made it home safely, but I'm not planning on going anywhere I don't need to.

The weather report had said on Monday that there was going to be a blizzard in the evening on Tuesday, so my hubby and my in-laws decided to stay up in Omaha and get a hotel up close by where they work... because you really don't want to be out in that kind of weather, you have little to no visibility.

By morning I could see how much it had snowed.... a good 6 inches on top of what had already fallen!!! So this morning I had my work cut out for me to clear the snow off the driveway, walk, and car. It took me about an hour to unbury our car and shovel the driveway. I'm planning on leaving an hour before I'm scheduled to work in case I get stuck in the snow... our little car doesn't have to much weight behind it, so it has a tough time in the snow. I'm also planning on bringing the snow shovel and scrapper should anything happen.

We are definitely getting a white Christmas this year!

Thanksgiving...

For Thanksgiving Spencer's youngest sister Becky and her Fiance came to visit. I was working for most of their time here, but it seemed like a really nice visit. At one point during the trip they got to go to the capital building and learn about the history of the town.

Thanksgiving dinner was so good... I wish I could have eaten more, but I had already filled up on the crackers and dip earlier in the day. Turkey, green been casserole, stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, and gravy... yum.

One of the more memorable parts of the trip was the pumpkin swirl cheesecake that Becky made... especially because Gianni has hyped up her cheesecake making skills earlier that day. It was memorable not because I love cheesecake, and it's my favorite dessert, but because she mistook the jar of salt on the counter for a jar of sugar... and used a cup of it. Needless to say, we went with out the pumpkin cheese cake :(

What a nice visit!

Halloween...

On Halloween my mother-in-law and I got to carve some pumpkins...

And our favorite of them all... the one where I try to match the pumpkin's expression.

If you are wondering why I'm in those ridiculous overalls, it's because they're my painting clothes, and I was finishing up painting the upstairs nursery room while my in-laws took care of the trick-or-treaters who came to the door. We've been remodeling for a few months now, in order to get the house ready to put on the market (will post a picture soon). It's improved so much from what it was before.

My 2 yr old nephew made such a cute tiger this year. He stayed out longer then he did the year prior, and by the end of the night he was asking his mommy and daddy to "stay, I be right back" as he saw the other kids going to the door on their own, and he wanted to follow too.

We had discovered at Nikki's birthday party, that he was freaked out by eyeballs falling out of his grandfather's head... even though it was just a little piece of paper that had a circle printed on it... it still freaked him out. So for Halloween, I picked up come chocolate covered caramels that had eyeball printed foil to see what he would do. His grandmother decided to play the trick on him... she put the candy up against her eyelid and hit the back of her head to make it fall out and roll towards him. The best part is the look that he gives you, a sort of disgusted and not sure what to do about it look. He picked it up and gave it back to her, and she pretended to put it back in her eye, when she actually put it back in the candy dish. :) This age is so fun.

Motherhood Maternity...

During the initial interview, Suzette prefaced the interview with "We don't really even consider any applicants who don't have any retail experience, but since you have a background in fashion I wanted to give you a shot." Praise God! Also, the Motherhood stores usually "don't get very busy over the holidays... Easter and Mother's Day are the busiest times of the year," so it awesome that they even considered me over the holidays (since we'll be moving up to Omaha in January to be closer to my hubby's work, and church).

On top of all that they were looking for someone to do the morning shift because they had a lot of closing shift people.... which was perfect because I was looking for a morning/afternoon position so that I could be home to make dinner for my family, and get any chores done before they got home.

Motherhood sounded like it was going to take a long time to go through the process, so I wasn't sure if it would be quick enough before I got hired at the other places, but I really wanted to work there of all places. I just prayed that God would place me where he wanted and it was really amazing to see God's hand working in all this. Suzette the manager was really great at keeping me posted all through the process so I wasn't left hanging. She also warned me when the upper-level manager from Kansas was going to be calling for my phone interview so that I was prepared, I thank God for that!

Praise God!!! I got the job at Motherhood Maternity! Totally an act of God... the other two jobs that I applied for seemed to be on a roll, and then after things were looking good with Motherhood Maternity, the other two places seemed to drop off the face of the earth. They were talking about their pressing need to get people placed before the holidays and we were talking about scheduling, background checks and such but they never called back since the beginning of last week (when all the Motherhood interviews started).

More acts of God to come I'm sure...

Putting the house on the market pt. 2...

As some of you may already know, my in-laws are trying to do some improvements to the house before they put it on the market. One of the projects my husband and I have been helping with is the small middle room upstairs. This is the update from my previous post about the progress made on the room... Now we have the ceiling finished and are now working on putting up the textured wall paper that you can paint on. (the white side is with the wall paper).


It's beginning to look like a fresh canvas again. I can't wait to see a fresh coat of paint on the walls, carpet pulled up and furniture in the room.


The walls are going to be a greenish blue color and the baseboards and trim will be an off white (kind of close to what it is now, but reversed).

Fall is Here!!

Once the temperature starts to get a bit cooler (which this year was Oct. 10) the leaves change colors and start to fall. If the temperature gets too cold all the leaves will fall off and everything looks dead, but if it warms up a bit after the cooler weather, the trees change beautiful vibrant colors before falling and it wont fall as quickly. This week has been really nice and warm, so the leaves look so beautiful and vibrant.


I've been wanting to take pictures of the trees around here while there is still leaves on them... so I finally was able to. Here are some pictures of some of the trees a few blocks away from our house.


In preparation for the fall I've reduced all items in my etsy store $2-$70 off original prices. And I'm also offering a 2 pack special for belly bands. Please feel free to look around and tell your friends about the fall sale.

Happy Autumn everyone!!!