2012 Thanksgiving Weekend

I always intend to blog about our holidays and never seem to find the time to do so!  I figure it's too late to blog about Halloween, so instead I'll share about our Thanksgiving whirlwind of events!

1.  Wednesday:  We drove up to Yukon late Wednesday afternoon to Greg's aunt's house.  We had time to visit and hang out with family which was fabulous.  Parker entertained everyone with his rock-star glasses (I forgot to take a picture and he broke them yesterday.  Boo!) and guitar.

2.  Thursday:  We enjoyed a fabulous Thanksgiving lunch with our family.  Everything was delicious, but my mouth keeps watering for some more of grandmother's cornbread stuffing that she added bacon too.  Yummy! 


Greg and cousins Harper and Ashley

Me and my cousin Halsey

Parker cracking up his cousins Hillarie and Harper

After Parker's nap we drove to Norman so we could spend a few days at Greg's mom and step-dad's house.  That night after I put Parker down I decided to brave the Black Friday craziness!  The plan was to meet up with some girlfriends, but that didn't last long as we were all in the search of good bargains.  I started out at Target and got the first three Twilight movies for $4 a piece!  Yay!  From there I went to Wal-Mart where I had a lot of success!  I bought the entire Harry Potter DVD collection for a little over $20!  Yay!  I also bought a wii for $95 and a new TV stand for our living room for $87!  Yay!  After I left Wal-Mart I ventured over to Best Buy and braved the cold and the wind standing in line for an hour.  I should have got there sooner because the TV we wanted to buy was already sold out (I walked in the door at 12:15 and the doors opened at 12:00.  They were only letting 50 people in at a time).  Boo!  The guy had a TV that was an inch smaller that he said he would sell to me for $250, but I figured Greg would gripe so I said no.  We were wanting to buy a 40" for $187.  To console myself I bought The Lorax DVD for $4.  We recently rented it for family movie night and Parker loved it so I didn't feel as pissy when I left.  I think I climbed into bed that night morning at 1:30.

3.  Friday:  After we got up and around, Greg, Parker and myself headed to the mall.  I needed some new foundation at MAC, I had to get my wedding ring inspected (and cleaned!) to maintain my warranty, and I wanted to find Parker a pair of Christmas pajama's for his Christmas Eve present.  I got a pair and a sweatshirt for him at The Children's Place for $12!  Yay!  We had a nice lunch at El Chico and then left the mall.  It actually wasn't as packed as the stores were the night before.  From there we braved Toys R Us, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart turned into a major score because Greg has been dying to buy a bike with training wheels for Parker.  We got the last one in his size for $29.  Yay!  Parker was with us and rode it all the way to the check out stand and the whole time he kept saying, "Daddy, I want to take this home".  Poor Greg was ready to give it to him right then and there (and he still says he doesn't want to wait until Christmas), but I told Parker that we were just picking it up as a favor for another little boy's parents. 

From there we went to Best Buy.  Greg told me I was crazy for passing up the TV offer the guy made me the night before.  I was obviously getting sleep deprived because I didn't even think about just buying it and returning it if Greg didn't like it.  Luckily, the same employee who told me about it the night before was still working and they had three left!  There was a sign on them that said $299, so they adjusted it at the register for us.  We are now up with the times with a flat screen TV in our living room!  Yay!  (Is it just me, or are there a lot of "yay's" in this post?)  From there we want back to my in-laws house to relax for about an hour before we met some friends for dinner at Red Lobster.  That night after Parker was already in bed, Greg and I left to go watch the final Twilight movie at the theatre!  It was great and I'm so glad that Greg was such a trooper during the entire Twilight series of movies!

Saturday:  I'm not sure if any one has noticed, but I added some new items to my Bucket List recently.  On Saturday, I had the pleasure of marking another item off of that list!  We went to the OU football game!  And not just any game, it was the Bedlam Game!  I know a lot of my family on the East coast may be reading this and wonder what all the excitement is.  Well, Oklahoma doesn't have a pro football team.  Instead, our state either roots for the University of Oklahoma (OU) or Oklahoma State University (OSU).  Bedlam game is OU vs. OSU.  So, it's a pretty big deal!  One of my best friends from high school has 4 season tickets and they invited Greg and I to join them.  We were thrilled!  It was a great game that ended with an OT Sooner win!  BOOMER SOONER!

 

After the game, Greg was anxious to drive the two hours back home.  He is in the middle of fifty million different projects at our house (OK, more like six or seven, but they are all big under takings!) and was ready to go home so he could knock some of the projects off his list on Sunday.  We got home tired and exhausted around 10:30 that night, but were happy to be home with all of our goodies!

Sunday:  I went grocery shopping, cooked lunch and dinner, and tried to complete all of the un-packing (I failed).  Greg and I both put together our new TV stand and then he installed our new TV, along with hooking up our surround sound and the new wii.  All I can say is I was even more excited than usual to watch Revenge and 666 Park Ave that night!

I hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

A Visit From my Parents

Once again I've been a bad blogger. And it's a good thing I already wrote teasers of upcoming blogs, or I would so not be writing. Believe me when I say pregnancy has given me a serious case of lack of motivation to do....anything. Blah.

My parents arrived right around dinner time on a Thursday evening. And of course, I was in the middle of a cooking catastrophe. I had planned to make meatloaf (one of my favorite meals) that day and when hubby called and asked what we were having, after I told him, he made the comment that he sure wished he could help me with the menu planning because he can always count that at least one night a week we have meatloaf and another night we have grilled pork chops. Now, one reason why I hate Monday's is because that's the day I go to the grocery store. It also happens to be the day it literally takes me two hours to come up with a menu for the week. And I'll admit, yes, I'm guilty of making the same things repetitively. I can't help it! However, I don't beat myself up because I know if it were up to Greg we would have tortilla soup and chicken burritos at least once a week! But, I digress. Back to the meatloaf. Since he made that comment I decided to make the meatloaf like one of his grandma's makes. It happens to be the recipe on the back of the Lipton onion soup mix. I thought I had all of the ingredients. Until I started to make it. One ingredient was ketchup. I had ketchup...just not enough ketchup. So this is how my parents arrival went:

Note: a prior phone call from my mom, who was lost in my neighborhood (seriously who would name all the streets in a neighborhood the same name?) resulted in me telling her to just "come on in because I'll have raw meat all over my hands" when she got to my house.

Mom: "Hello, we're here!"

Me: *frantically* "OK, I'm having a little catastrophe! I don't have enough ketchup! *banging of ketchup bottle on the counter top*

Mom: "Uh-oh"

Me: "I gotta go to the store! Make yourselves at home!" *dashing out the door*

Yup, that is what life is like in my house. Sounds exciting, huh? Needless to say, I finally got the ketchup and dinner went off without a hitch. Oh, except Greg decided that he liked the old way I make meatloaf better because it's less greasy! (I am proud to say that I haven't cooked meatloaf since then! I'm working on it!)

The next day, Friday, Greg and I had a lot of errands that were pertinent to be taken care of. Unfortunately they took up most of the morning and my parents had opted to stay at home. That afternoon we just hung out around the house. I did ask my mom to help me with a project though because *surprise* I just wasn't motivated to do it. I know I could have, but the idea of having my mom help me just sounded much more appealing. That project was to make new pillows and pillow coverings for a rocking chair that Greg and I were refurbishing. The rocking chair has kind of a funny story. I'm probably about to get in trouble by Greg's side of the family for telling it, too! But, years ago Greg's dad gave us the rocking chair that his mom used to rock him in when he was a baby. Greg told his dad that he didn't want it, but his dad wouldn't hear anything of it. We both thought it was ugly (sorry) and therefore we always kept it in the garage of every house we ever lived in. Let's just say that by the time it arrived in Colorado it had definitely seen better days. The fabric was covered in dust and I was a little scared to sit in it because the bottom was made with lawn chair strips. But, Greg and I decided to give it a little TLC. We ripped all the fabric and cushions off and chucked them. Then, I wood filled all the holes and marks that were in the wood. Next, Greg sanded it and painted it white. He also re-stapled the lawn chair strips to make them sturdier. After that it was up to me to make pillows. That was easier said than done because the rocking chair is kind of an odd size. I did find one pillow that worked for the back and ended up just demolishing an actual bed pillow to make the seat cushion. The hardest part was finding upholstery fabric in this little town. In the end, I got creative (which is a stretch for me) and bought a fabric shower curtain and just used that!

By the time my Mom was at my house I had partially finished one pillow. All I needed to do was stitch the fabric closed. Luckily, my mom saw what I was about to do and told me how to do it so it would look more "professional". I knew there was a reason I was procrastinating! I let her take over the actual sewing and went about tearing up my bed pillow. We worked on them for a little while longer and then decided to finish them up the next day. My parents are pretty cute in the sense that despite the fact that they are in their 70's and late 60's, they go on a date every Friday night. Usually dinner and a movie. So Greg and I thought they might enjoy going to the one screen movie theatre here in town. I was a little worried they would have already seen the movie playing, because movies don't usually show up here until they've been out for a month or two. Luckily, it was a kid's movie, "The Tooth Fairy" so they hadn't seen it. It was actually pretty cute! After that it was time to go home and hit the sack!

Saturday morning was again a lazy day at the house. Luckily, it also gave my mom and I chance to finish the pillows. I was beyond happy! It felt so good to have another piece of furniture in place in the nursery before my baby shower the next day!





That afternoon I drove my parents around to do some sight seeing. We went to the wind farm south of town (Greg opted to stay home...that's the last thing he wants to see on his day off!). Not because my parents hadn't seen one before, but because at this wind farm the property owners put wooden windmills next to the big wind turbines. It's kind of funny! I always think, "past meets present" when I see it.


From there I took them to Two Buttes. From the highway it looks completely flat (like all of SE Colorado) but once you get in there it drops down to a canyon and there's a water hole there. It was a little chilly out so we didn't last there for very long. I forgot my camera, so here's a pic I took at "the hole" the first summer we came to town. If you look real close, you'll notice that's actually a person jumping off of the cliff into the water. Legend has it that divers have gone down and cannot find the bottom of this water hole. That's what all the locals say anyway!



The rest of our day was spent at home hanging out. If you read my blog about my baby shower, you already know that on Sunday we took them out to lunch then came home for the festivities. The baby shower was a lot of fun and I was happy that my mom was there to celebrate it with me.


They left early Monday morning. If things work out well, they will be making the trip back up here in just 5 weeks to meet my sweet baby boy!!

P.S. In case you're wondering why I didn't post any pics of the completed rocking chair...that's because I forgot to take one of it by itself. And a before picture would have been nice, too, huh? Oh well! I finished decorating the nursery this weekend so stay tuned for pics and you'll see the rocking chair there!

An Unconventional Christmas

Christmas was a little different for us this year. It was the first time we spent Christmas in Colorado...without the company of our families. We sure did miss seeing everyone, but at the same time it was nice to not have to deal with the annual "juggling of the families".

Our Christmas Eve was actually spent going to church. I felt a little guilty for not going to Christmas Eve church for the past, oh, six or seven years, and luckily my guilt wore off onto Greg and he went with me! From there, we went to the bar. (That's not bad is it?) We had a good evening visiting with friends and the bar owner, who also happens to be our neighbor!

Christmas morning I woke up bright and early and made us a batch of cinnamon streussal muffins. YUM! Afterwards, we opened the few presents we received from family members and then we just lounged around. For our Christmas lunch I prepared an awesome meal of ham, baked potatoes, and squash. OK, I'm exaggerating just a little. I burned the squash. And I didn't really cook the ham. It was left over from my company Christmas party that I took home, froze, and re-heated in the microwave. It was still good nevertheless!

After lunch we hit the road to go to Colorado Springs! I cannot tell you how much I am in love with the Springs! Put me in any big city and I am a happy camper! But add beautiful Pikes Peak to the background and it's the cherry on top of a sundae! (Even though I don't like cherries on sundaes, but you get the point!) One of my friends here in Lamar had graduated from college in Springs the week before and she's already moved back to Lamar but has her apartment until February. So she gave us the keys and let us stay there for free! It was awesome!

It may sound crazy, but I absolutely love going to a movie on Christmas. So we did just that! We watched Sherlock Holmes, which in my opinion was not that great, then luckily we found a Denny's that was still open for dinner. Afterwards, we went back to the apartment and hit the sack! We had to prepare for our big day of shopping the next day!

Now, I know I've mentioned that I am not the shopping type. And I'm really not. But when I'm actually in the mood to shop and am mentally prepared for it; watch out! I was determined to find a lot of good post-Christmas deals! For instance, I wanted to buy stocking holders for our mantle, a cute stocking for Parker, a train to go chug-a-luging around the Christmas tree, outdoor LED Christmas lights, and some Christmas books for Parker for next year since they would be half off! Needless to say, I was pumped!

Unfortunately, all of my dreams went bust. The only good deal I got was on 4 Christmas stocking holders (One for me, Greg, Parker, and Shady!) at Hobby Lobby. Other than that I couldn't find any of the other items I had in mind. And get this: Christmas books never go on sale. They just package them up and return them to the vendors to re-sell the next year. Darn! OH, and here's a cute story about Greg! When I told him I wanted to buy Christmas books he said, "We already have one." My response was, "Yeah, one! We need more". He argued that the baby won't even know what we're reading to him anyway. I beg to differ, but I also had to clue him in to the fact that I'm not going to want to read the same book every single night! *sigh* You gotta love my husband!

Luckily, we were able to get some fun kitchen decor at Hobby Lobby, made a Home Depot and a Lowe's run (our kitchen now has cabinet hardware!) and my first ever trip to Motherhood where I got a good deal on two cute sweaters!

The day was topped off with dinner at The Elephant Bar where we shared an amazing blueberry apple cobbler after dinner! The next day we loaded up everything and came home.

All in all, our Christmas was pretty enjoyable. However, I absolutely cannot wait for Christmas next year! I'll finally have a home to decorate that (hopefully) won't be under construction, and it will be Parker's first Christmas!!!

A Valentines Idea

For all of you married folk out there that may need a Valentines Day idea; here's a suggestion. Have a night in, order a pizza, share a bottle of wine, and watch the movie Fireproof.

Luckily I married a guy who loves movies as much as I do. Here in Lamar there is a one screen movie theatre and they only show two movies a week. It's one of the few things to do around here, so we pretty much watch anything that they are showing. One week way back when they were showing the movie Fireproof. We had never seen a trailer for the movie, but the poster that was displayed outside the theatre looked fairly interesting. Saturday night arrived and we decided that we might as well go to the movies, but since neither one of us knew anything about the movie I decided to watch a trailer for the movie online. But, as luck would have it, our internet connection kept disconnecting, so I only saw the first twenty seconds or so of the trailer. My impression was that the movie was about a firefighter who worked on a train wreck. I love "disaster" movies so I figured it would be pretty exciting to watch.

When we arrived to the theatre I was pretty surprised to see how many people were actually there. I figured they were up for an action type movie as well. The movie started and after about 10 minutes, Greg leaned over to me and asked, "Is this a B movie?" "I have no idea, but the acting is pretty horrible." was my reply.

Ha, ha! For those of you who don't know anything about Fireproof, it is actually a Christian movie that shows a marriage that is on the brink of divorce and the husbands attempts to reconcile his relationship with both his wife and God. Although both my husband and I thought the acting was horrible, the whole plot and moral of the story is absolutely fantastic. I think it's a must-see for any couple. As my husband said, "You'll laugh, you'll cry, it's just a pretty good movie."