Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! I've been playing catch up here at home all weekend and I still can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's been a big year for us and we have so much to be thankful for. It isn't even big things- just all the little things that add up to make our life ours is what we are so thankful for.

A couple of weekends ago we were traveling back from a weekend in Kansas City. We stopped at a Taco Bell off of the interstate and we were having a good time eating our lunch. Nothing out of the usual, just us and Michael eating our tacos and quesadillas. As we were getting ready to leave an elderly man came over and said hi. He said Michael was just the cutest little guy and we looked like such a nice family. He told us we were very lucky, he lost his wife of 60 years just that year and his kids were all grown up now. He had tears in his eyes and it took a lot for me not to start crying! At any rate, his words really stuck with me. We are lucky, even though a lot of times I don't feel like it. And for that, I am thankful. :o)

Now, on to Thanksgiving!

We dropped a sleeping Michael off at grandma and grandpa's and headed into town to watch Scott's brother's band play their CD release party gig.

He plays the drums.

They are an oldies band (originally started in the 60s with one original member) but the recently added some new oldies songs into the repertoire. Most of these are pep band standards so I had a great time! I love oldies!

Michael had a ton of fun playing with his older cousins at grandma and grandpa's house. They are in the process of finishing an addition, so there was plenty of space to run around!

The kids were pushing the chairs around and Michael was chasing them and just laughing and yelling the whole time! Boy, he was sure pooped when we got home!

Michael was so intrigued with the veggie plate we had before dinner. He wanted to chew on (but not actually eat) everything. I was so hungry by the time appetizers were set out that I ate way too many cheese and crackers. I got a headache so I went to lay down for "a few minutes" and when I woke up everyone had started eating dinner!

A culprit of my sleepiness might have been my little early riser. We were up a good hour and a half before anyone else so we spent lots of time playing downtairs!

Who can be angry about being up early with such a cutie in footie jammies?

We had a great family Thanksgiving and have lots to be thankful for this year. We hope you do, too!

New Camera Stuff!

A couple of months ago I made the switch from my Canon Elph to a Nikon d3000 SLR. I have been very happy with it and it is so fun to take photos!

So with my birthday a few weeks ago, I decided to add a couple of things to my camera bag. I ordered the Nikor 50mm 1.8 lens and also a copy of Photoshop Elements. So far, I am very pleased with both. There is a huge learning curve, but I think with a little time I will be more comfortable using them.

The new lens is pretty great. It is nice and small and works well in low light. I was also a huge fan of the price tag...right around $100! The only thing I overlooked was that it is a manual focus lens due to the type of camera I have, but the auto focus lens was about twice as much. So far I've been having fun playing with the focus although it works best on stationary objects-which my favorite subject is not!



Scampy. He has been on probation on our house for being naughty. We're giving him a few weeks to prove to us his good behavior before we try and find him a new home. We moved his food to the basement storage room because Michael kept getting into it and putting his dry food in his water. So far, so good. He has also been banned from the couch so he only sits on the backs of our living room chairs....I think the likes the high perch so he can look down on his minions.

This was shot at night with just my house lights on- I like the bokeh off the dishes stacked in the background.

Busy boy! He's had a rough week this week with a kid biting him on the face at daycare and then having to go to a new daycare for the day while our usual gal was out sick. We're looking forward to the weekend!

Also my birthday presents (from myself) included these boots from Target:



They were buy one, get one 50% off so I ordered the black also! A couple of months ago they had them in stores so I tried them on and have just been waiting to splurge on them. To go along with them I also ordered a pair of skinny jeans from old navy! We'll see, I am not usually so daring or fashionable with my clothing choices. I'll let you know how they work out. :o)

Have a great Friday!

Kansas City Weekend

This past weekend Scott, Michael and I headed out of town to Kansas City for a little fun with Scott's office. They take an annual trip to somewhere a few hours away and everything is paid for with money they win from different competitions between the insurance agencies. We stayed in a nice Residence Inn with two rooms and everything went pretty smoothly. It was a low key trip with lots of nice dinners out, football watching and shopping. We had an unfortunate incident with Michael breaking my iphone screen and then I was scared to take my camera out with me, but on Sunday morning we went for a walk around the Plaza before the shops opened and I got some nice photos. It was a beautiful morning!

Michael loved the fountain! I think he really just wanted to get in and splash around in the water!

It was nice out, but just a little chilly so we made Michael wear mittens. He hated them! We couldn't get his thumb to line up with the thumb part so he looked like he had weird hands for most of the weekend. He loved waving at all the new people as we walked around.





I think this was our third time visitng Kansas City as an office and every time it is really fun. One year we went after Thanksgiving and loved seeing the Plaza lit up at night but the shopping traffic was horrible! It was much less busy this time of year and the shopping was great!




I love the above photo because it shows Michael doing his favorite thing: running! He is such a little goofball!

It was a great little weekend away and now we are refreshed and ready to close out the Iowa State football season and get ready for Thanksgiving!

It's the time of year again...time to start thinking about our Christmas cards!!

It is no secret that I love using shutterfly.com to make my holiday cards and other projects. I especially love their new flat stationary cards which are printed on a heavy cardstock. They are beautiful! I used two of their designs last year for both Michael's birth announcement and also our holiday card.

I even used them for our very first Christmas card as a married couple:

Hands down, I love holiday photo cards. It is one of the best parts of the season! I am loving all of Shutterfly's new holiday designs and have no idea where to start to pick this year's design. Or a photo- yikes! I better get on that! I am thinking about doing something similar to this design so I can just print my little message right inside the card and the empasis is on a big photo with just a little design. So many choices!

So friends, hop on over to shutterfly.com and check out some of the designs and maybe you'll see something you like also!

p.s.- Here is a link to my post about last year's Christmas card project.

Rallying

It's a new week and I am so thankful for it! I feel like I rarely say such things because time always seems to get away from me....but this one I am thankful for.

The past week we've all been very sick at our house; especially me. I stayed home three days from school and probably would have done more if I didn't feel so guilty. Does that happen to anyone else? I hate missing school, absolutely hate it. Once in high school I got sick repeatedly in one day and still wouldn't go home....what was wrong with me? I guess I didn't want to miss anything! It is especially hard for me to miss school since I am only there just two days a week, but what can I do? It was terrible, I could barely even care for Michael in just the few hours a day I had him by myself.



Anyway, the good news is I finished season 3 of Lost and now I'm on season 4 thanks to hulu.com and a fast internet connection during the day! And of course, I am feeling much better today and I'm so excited I can drink my morning cup of coffee again without feeling sick. I'm off to school! :o)

ISU Game Day

Yesterday morning Michael had his Cyclone jammies on while we hung out at home. He looked so cute and was in a happy mood! We took the cushions off the couch and he was having lots of fun jumping around!

Scott was up in Ames tailgating with some out of town friends and I headed up to the game right before kickoff. I had a nice experience walking through miles and miles of Cyclone tailgaters since I had to park really far away. It was an eye opening experience since I had no idea some of these tailgating spots existed! Minus all the Husker fans setting up their trailer parks in our town, it was pretty great.

The game was fun and at times Jack Trice was so LOUD and electric, but ended with a one point loss. It hurt, and I'm still sad about it. I enjoyed the game thanks to the great weather and my neighbor girl/mom & Denise watching Michael but still, I wish we would have won. This is the end of a 105 year series between the Huskers and the Cyclones and hopefully one day we'll meet again to kick some Husker tail. Until then, here's looking forward to winning out the season!

One more Halloween Post...

I know we are full swing into November, but I just need to squeeze in one more Halloween post. How cute is Michael's little Halloween shirt he got for his birthday? My grandma gave us some lovely squash to enjoy and Michael has sure liked playing with it. Eating it, has been another story- Michael is not a fan! More for Scott and I!

Remember earlier when I said dalmatians were special to Scott's family? Here is one of my absolute favorite pages from Scott's little childhood photo album:



How cute is little Scott? How much fun would it be to have that little dalmatian puppy as a kid? The leaves, the blonde hair....I just die. :o) Too much cuteness!

Michael's Tricks

Here are a couple photos of Michael performing his newest tricks.

1st Trick: Blowing a kiss:

#2: Waving hello and goodbye:

I just think he is the cutest darn thing ever!

Also, now all my flowers are dead and my yard looks like a haunted forest. Yikes!

Football!

ISU vs. Kansas - Homecoming weekend!

It was homecoming, which meant lots of alumni band friends! We watched them march at halftime-they looked great! Maybe someday I'll take the plunge and do alumni band.



It was a beautiful day to tailgate. We have really lucked out on weather this year with every game day just being absolutely beautiful. Scott and the crew headed up early to get a good spot and get set up and I stayed at home until just before game time. We left Michael with our neighbor friends who also have a little boy and a good time was had by all!

We had french toast, eggs, sausage and mimosas! Delicious!

ISU won the game and we now have a winning record! Hopefully the next game against the Huskers works out just as well!

Go Cyclones