{let it snow, let it snow}

AND let it BLOW! I woke up this morning, looked out the window to see a little more than the top of my neighbor's door. The rest of the door was hidden under snow. Looks like they are not going anywhere for a while. Cancelled one of my hair appointments for this evening. Will most likely be cancelling the one for tonight as well. Another snow day. A blowing snow day.
After being downstairs for awhile, in just my sweats and a thin t-shirt, (usually have to have on 7 more articles of clothing to keep warm lately) I noticed my house was quite toasty, I went over to the thermostat to find my husband had set it at 76 degrees! What the?? I said, "BABE 76!??" His response, "You said you were cold." How sweet. The only thing is I really don't want a $200 dollar utility bill either. No wonder I felt like I was back at home at grandma's house. My grandma keeps her house set AT LEAST at 76 or higher during the winter. I am planning on taking shorts when we go to visit in a few weeks.
I am thinking pajamas all day, lots of hot chocolate, chili and rolls for dinner, (perfect on a day like today) and snuggling with my boys. Loving snow days. Could definitely get used to them.

{a tradition}

We got together with friends last night for the annual Gingerbread house making fest! So fun. Lots of candy. LOTS of candy. Good friends, funny friends.
I love making Gingerbread houses. Definitely will continue to be a tradition at this house.

Some of the supplies:
The beverage: The finished products:
Pretty sure the one on the end (left side) is the winner! In our defense she had a few cake decorating classes under her belt.

This is mine. Not exactly what I had envisioned, but I spent too much time goofing off and before you knew it, it was ten at night! I am still surprised my unsupported roof could hold all of those chocolate swirls. We looked/sounded like a bunch of carpenters sawing away at our graham crackers with steak knives. They work though!

This is the husband's. Do you like his army of santas? I was informed that they are "offensive linemen."

Today, we are snowed in. Well, not really but close enough. The weather is calling for 11-14 inches of snow. Winter is officially here. This is how the dude spent the morning:

Standing in front of the window watching the men shovel snow off the sidewalk.

Today we will be watching this movie:

Again. It has become a favorite. Love Vince. Hilarious. The husband is home for the next two days. Everything has been cancelled. Yay for snow days!

{last}

I think I have posted this picture on my blog every winter for the last 3 years now. Every winter this is EXACTLY how I feel:
It is so cold here!!! We went from 60 degrees to 20 degrees (or lower) and snow/ice. I haven't been able to get warm since last Monday. I am so thankful this is my last winter in Iowa. I am thinking when all is said and done and we are finished with school, somewhere warm sounds like a good place to live. For example, Hawaii or Florida or anywhere we won't have cold weather or snow and ice sounds great to me! I am really counting my blessings that I have a warm house to live in. Truly.

{O Christmas "Tee"}

I should be tying bows for the ward Christmas party tomorrow night, but I decided sitting by the tree, drinking Stephan's hot chocolate (chocolate mint truffle to be exact) while on the web is WAY more fun!

I love this time of year! Love the yummy smelling oils and candles (LOVING B&B Works "Fireside")hot chocolate, Christmas music, lights, and I am sure I could go on and on. I already know that it is going to go by way to fast. The next few weeks on the calendar are jam packed!

The Dude loves our tree. We have gone from "T RUH" to "Tee." At least once a day he will look at me and say "Tee" while pointing and walking over to the tree. I have to say that he has done SO much better than I thought he would do with the whole "not touching" the tree thing. One day I will have at least 6 trees in my house. Love them! I have three different sets of ornaments for the tree. Trust me if I could have more I would! This set is the husband's favorite. Or so I was told while decorating it. Our tree has been up for a month now (yes a month) and I am so not even close to being sick of it.

Had to post this video of The Dude "winking" aka closing his eyes and opening them super fast! He thinks he is pretty funny. Gotta love the video quality when I use my ancient camera. Santa PLEASE bring me a new one! Please. pretty please. Don't mind the fact that half the time The Dude is off to the side. He doesn't exactly sit still for very long. If you wink at him or ask him to wink this is what you get:


I have been enjoying Alicia Keys lately. A lot. Love the song Empire State of Mind that she sings with Jay Z. Usually not a fan of rap either. The second The Dude hears that song his head starts to bob. The other day she sang with Tim McGraw on Oprah. Hold that thought. Yes, I watch Oprah. I DVR the show so I can watch the ones I want to and delete the crap that she sometimes has on her show. I am a little bummed she is quiting. Sometimes she has some good ones. Sometimes? What do you think about her? Back to Alicia Keys. This is one of my favorite Christmas songs. Love her singing it! Tim isn't so bad himself!



Back to the bows!

{Santa}

Where did November go? Where has the past year gone for that matter. I can't believe I have a boy that will be a year old next month! I really can't believe that I have been married to a boy for almost 5 years!?

We had a lovely Thanksgiving! :) My mom, step dad and sister came to celebrate with us. It was SO fun to have them here! We had a simple, but yummy dinner. Wishing I had more garlic mashed potatoes and raspberry pretzel salad right now! AND Pomegranate 7UP! I am almost positive I gained at least 10 pounds! Tis the season, right?? The Dude had so much fun playing with his aunt and grandparents. This is one of my favorite pictures from last week....
My mom and The Dude. Do you think she loves him? Just a little. While I was making the mashed potatoes, I was listening to them playing. She was throwing, well more like handing him the football while saying "He's at the 40 the 30!" Followed by The Dude laughing. Hard. It made me wish we were closer to home. However, I have decided that I am cool not living in Utah. Just not 1000 miles away. I want my kids to know their grandparents.

Anyway, it was a good day! We watched Christmas Vacation that night. It's tradition. Love that show! I still can't believe that my husband went shopping with me on Black Friday! I thought I was going to tip over when he said he wanted to go, and that it "sounded like fun." I think all that schooling is getting to him! :) It actually was quite fun to go with him. We found some killer deals. We left at about 4AM and walked into all the stores that we went to. Much better than standing in line in the cold. If you are wondering why we went so early, well let me tell you. The later it gets the worse it gets! Trust me. We went to the mall again later that afternoon and it was packed!

While at the mall that afternoon, we decided to take The Dude to see Santa. Not so sure how I felt about this Santa. Not so sure how The Dude felt about him either. Actually, I think the look on his face said it all!
Staring.
Staring.
And still staring.
At least he didn't scream I guess. We might have to take him to see Santa again, maybe we can get a smile. Maybe.

PS: DYING to see The Blind Side. Have you seen it????

{update}

Pretty sure this is how I have felt the last two days....
We are back! We went to Utah for a week or so, to babysit for my dad while he and his wife took a little trip to Florida. The Saturday before we were supposed to go, the husband came down with the good old flu. Not so much fun. I was supposed to fly out the next Tuesday, and Sunday night I started getting a cold. I thought I had the flu, but luckily it was just a cold. However, flying with a child plus a cold is not very fun. The Dude did really good on the flights to Utah. We sat next to a real winner on the flight from Denver to Salt Lake. When we sat down I said out loud, "Please go to sleep for mom." With only one nap and past his bedtime I thought The Dude would sleep most of the way there. Much to my dismay he was WIDE awake. After I said this, the guy sitting next to us said, "For me too!" I am sure the look on my face said it all. After that I really said some prayers in my head for The Dude to sleep. Sleep he did! Thank goodness since we were sitting next to Scrooge!

The Dude had kind of a rough time. He was lucky enough to get my cold. Not so much fun for him. He is finally starting to act like he feels better.

One of the days we were there, The Dude and I went with Grandma Ruth to one of my favorite stores (especially this time of year) Tai Pan Trading. The Dude was in heaven. He loves "T RUHS" (Christmas trees). A lot. I am thinking he may like them a little more than his mother. Which is quite a bit. They had about a GAZILLION trees there. We were both in heaven. The Dude's eyes were the size of golf balls while he pointed and said "T RUH T RUH T RUH!" I could have spent a GAZILLION dollars in there on Christmas decor alone. Love it. All of it. Well almost all of it.

We had a lot of fun with aunt Shelby, aunt Nicole, and uncle Cody. There were a few days that it got a little hectic though. One particular, day I was in the bedroom folding laundry when I heard my little sister yelling, "Kristan Kristan come look what 'The Dude' did!" I hurried into the bathroom to find a brand new roll of toilet paper floating in the toilet. Lovely. There is something about soggy paper. Especially, toilet paper. Soggy anything for that matter. Picture me trying not to gag while I am even thinking about it long enough to type. Two hours later while getting The Dude a bottle ready before bed he decided to finish the night off by grabbing a full glass of water on the counter, spilling it all over me and the floor.

The next day I was helping my sister with homework, when I realized The Dude had been missing for a minute or two. I started looking for him and found him in the bathroom. This time he had been dipping what was left of the toilet paper into the toilet and sucking on it! Are you kidding me! I thought I was going to barf. Lucky enough the toilet had been flushed. Sometimes the kiddos don't hold the handle down long enough. Thank goodness whoever had used it last, had held the handle down long enough. It was an awesome day. So, the rest of the time that we spent we had all the doors to the bathrooms and bedrooms closed.

We watched this movie

for the first time. LOVED IT! It is such a cute show! For sure one we will have to purchase. I think we watched it with my sisters and brother atleast 5 times.

Yes, we went to see this

movie. Of course. Would I miss it? I went with my sisters, a friend and a cousin. We were lucky enough to have tickets for a sneak peak at seven Thursday night. Can we say packed??? Are we surprised? No. I was a little disappointed with Edward. He didn't really do it for me this time. Jacob on the other hand...OH MY! Wow is all I can say. Kristen Stewart bugs. She is kind of weird. I watched her on Conan one night and she looked rough! She kind of has a weird personality. Does anyone agree?? I really liked both her and Robert Pattinson in Twilight, but not so much in New Moon. I did think that the effects in this movie were a little better than the last ones. Just a little. :) All in all it was a pretty good show.

The past few days, two to be exact I have been cleaning like mad and doing laundry before my fam gets here for Thanksgiving. We were supposed to fly home on Friday, but ended up going on Saturday because our flight was delayed which caused us to miss our connecting flight. You have to love that Des Moines doesn't have a one way to Utah. It is good to be home. I miss the family, but I missed the husband tons! The Dude has been loving sleeping in his own bed, and playing with the alligator Grandpa Dean brought back from Florida for him.

The fam gets here in an hour or less, so enough rambling.

PS: Here are a few of the pictures I just got back. I love them. As usual Erica did an awesome job! :) Love her!

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

{family pictures}

Pretty sure when you have 276 pictures to choose from it is kind of hard to just pick a few. First of all I would like to point out my shirt in this first picture. That is my shirt underneath my sweater...NOT love handles. Although it may appear to be them. It is not. Just my shirt underneath my sweater all bunched up.

Second, off the subject BUT why did Gap have to discontinue my FAVORITE pair of jeans? Why? I finally found some that I loved. Loved as in wore them almost every single day. Well not every day because that would be gross, but you get the point. I didn't mind saving my pennies to pay the price for them because they were totally worth it. Now they are starting to get worn out and I can't replace them. Blah. Then they try and get you to buy some that are supposed to be just like them. They aren't. Not at all. Blah.

Third, the only thing I would change is the colors we were wearing. I wish I would have been able to find something other than blue for the husband to wear. I love what he is wearing, but I wanted to have a little more color. Do you think I could find what I was looking for. Nope. Okay I am done complaining. :)

Fourth, we were lucky enough to get a few pictures of The Dude actually smiling. This was a huge improvement from last time. Last time we didn't get a single smile. Not one. Thanks again to Mary. She was barking like a dog, meowing like a cat, jumping up and down, doing anything she could to get The Dude to smile or even look at her. Picture us asking The Dude where the kitty was, while Mary was meowing. Picture The Dude wondering where the beep the cat was that we kept asking him about a billion times. No wonders my husband loves getting pictures taken! I had a super cute belt to wear and I remembered in the middle of the session that it was in the car. Before I could say I was going to get my belt, the husband interrupted and said you don't need your belt. He meant it too. He loves pictures. I am sure that one day he will look back and be so thankful we had them taken. Maybe one day.

{We kind of had a rocky start} {BUT then he smiled! YAY!} {And then he was done.}
{Done. done.}

SO glad it is Friday. The past week was hectic. Hair appointments, flu shots, cleaning, putting my tree up. Yes, you read correct. I have my Christmas tree up and other decorations out. For those of you having a cow right now, I can explain. I am leaving for Utah and my family comes for Thanksgiving 2 days after I get back from Utah. Really didn't want to have to clean my house, do all my laundry from the trip AND throw my tree up before they got here. Actually, I just really used that as an excuse. The truth is I LOVE Christmas. As soon as Halloween is over I am ready for Christmas. I think you still can celebrate Thanksgiving even if your tree is up. Everyone does what works for them right? I know there are some of you that either, have your tree up, or are wanting to put it up...be honest....RACHEL! :D

Happy Friday!