Life Lately

Life lately has been a little hectic, but lot's of fun!

Work is getting CRAZY busy, so I feel like my weeks fly by!  I started a new job the middle of August and it was truly the best decision for me.  It is 20 minutes closer to home and the atmosphere is completely different.  I absolutely adored my co worker at my old job, and still miss her dearly, but I feel like I was meant for this job.  Pretty cool!

So with Christmas coming, the vendors at work are trying to fatten us up, ugh.  Twice we got some delicious donuts from our local bakery, along with meat and cheese trays, nuts and candies.  Pretty soon I'll start looking like Mrs. Claus....

My boss ordered these amazing cookies from a local lady, how cute are they??!!

Alayna and I have been busy crafting...

She made an ornament and a hot cocoa mix for her two besties....

We also made a couple of new ornaments for our homemade tree.

We played this new to us game, Telestrations on Friday night.  It is SUCH a blast!  

Unfortunately I am NOT artistic in the drawing department, but we seriously laughed so hard while playing this game!  I highly recommend it.  

Billy the elf has been busy with his shenanigans.

Speaking of shenanigans, poor Maci is going through withdrawals of not being able to go outside.  She is into everything and thinks she owns the house.  Little bugger.

It is cold, cold, cold here in MN.  Tomorrow's high is in the negative digits with wind chills around -30.  Yowsa.  The girls are staying at moms tonight and Brad and I are parked in front of the fireplace watching Saturday Night Live's Christmas special.  It is one of our fave holiday shows, SO funny!!

Top 3 Christmas Movies

Today I am linking up with Shay and Erika....

3 favorite Christmas movies





1.



Need I add any more??!!!  This is hands down our favorite Christmas movie of all time!  We watch it the night after putting up our Christmas tree and decor, while we drive around looking at Christmas lights, several times in between, and then on Christmas Eve.  Seriously, all 5 of us quote this movie all.the.time!!

2.




This one comes in a close second.  First of all, I ADORE their house, it's exactly what my "dream" home would be.  Huge and full of character!  Second of all, the girls in this movie are so like my 3 girls, especially Amy, her and Alayna could be twins!!

3.



This is another one on constant repeat, just doesn't ever get old!!!

December Happenings

I  cannot believe that Christmas is 2 weeks away!  I feel like December is just flying by...

Thursday night Emma and Alayna had an orchestra concert, look at how beautiful they are!  It was a very nice concert and always nice to hear some Christmas songs.

I took some pics last night of our house decorated, I love, love, love how cozy our home is at Christmas time.

In the dining room I have 2 skinny trees, the one on the left holds all of the homemade ornaments the girls have made over the years, and the one on the right is my candy tree.

Here is a little close up of the trees...

Our living room all decked out.

I made each of our stockings.  When Brad and I were first married, I painstakingly sewed each little sequin to spell our names.  When kids came along, I just hot glued them, haha!!  I made a comment about ordering some pretty embroidered stockings and quickly got shut down from the kids!

Downstairs is our "woodsy" themed tree.

Saturday was a catch up day for me which was glorious!  Brad and the girls were at the farm as the boys were cutting wood, and the grand kids were decorating Christmas cookies.  I worked on the 6 foot tall pile of laundry and cleaning the house.  I cranked up my 25 year old cd of Fleetwood Mac's greatest hits.  That will always be my favorite album!

Saturday night Rachel's boyfriend Matt came over and we made Christmas cookies.  The kids had a blast and it was a lot of fun watching them all interact!  We watched Home Alone while  decorating, It was a really nice night!

My kitchen was a disaster!  They each had to submit one cookie for judging and Emma's cookie came in  first place and Matt's second.  Ms. Rachel was a little miffed that hers didn't win.  Let's just say she did not receive any sort of artistic talent, haha!!

They did a pretty nice job decorating!!

Today is another day of nothing...church this morning and meal prepping this afternoon.  Love these quiet weekends!!

My Cinderella Weekend

What a whirlwind of a weekend...It went from having zero plans to being busy the whole weekend.  I tend to get a little cranky when our weekends are full, but this one was so worth it!  

Thursday morning brought Billy the elf back, and he brought breakfast!

Friday I was looking forward to coming home from work and chilling with the family, but then Brad called Friday afternoon to say that we had two free tickets to Holly Ball.  Holly Ball is a huge formal fundraising event for our local hospice care center.  Our friends Jim and Melissa had colleagues that couldn't go last minute so they asked us.  I was in full on freak out mode because I had less than 24 hours to be ready for a very formal event!

Thankfully Melissa had several dresses to try on, and I chose this one.  She wore it last year and I joked with her then that I was going to wear it for something, it's so beautiful!

I'd say we clean up pretty well!

We got there around 4:30 which was social hour, they had an acoustic band playing and everything was absolutely gorgeous!

After the dinner they had a band and a video dj, and we danced until I could hardly walk, my feet hurt so bad!  We had the BEST time and I'm so glad we had the chance to go.  Just at the dinner they raised over $110,000!!!  Amazing...

Melissa and I pausing our jam session!

Unfortunately Sunday came way to fast, and we had a super busy day.  Both girls had their activity banquets, Rachel's was at noon and Emma's at 3.  

Emma's swim banquet was at Coyote Moon and they did such a nice job!  The coach had each girl come up and said a few words, she said how impressed she was with how much Emma learned in a short amount of time with this being her first year.  She also said how good she is at breaststroke, I could tell it made Emma's day!  We are so proud of what she accomplished this year.  Can't wait for next year!

Rachel's volleyball banquet was at the high school and we had a potluck.  Her coach also got up and talked about each girl.  It was pretty cool when he brought up how her serving is one of her strongest skills.  She struggled SO much with serving back in 7th and 8th grade, but now kills it!  So proud of her and how hard she has worked to get to where she is!

And finally, if you're Catholic, then you know that tonight is St. Nick.  He stops by everyone's house and leaves a bag full of goodies.  Alayna's favorite thing are her elf jammies, they are SO freaking cute!

Emma got the book "The Cabin" and some slippers and Rachel got a journal and slippers.  St. Nick also brought us a new devotional Christmas book and some yummy candy.  He did well, haha!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are enjoying all the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas!!!

Thanksgiving 2016

We had an AMAZING Thanksgiving!!  Seriously, it was exactly what I had hoped it was going to be.  The company I work for has just added a huge addition, and they needed to close the shop to work on the electrical.  So I actually had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (we are always closed the Friday after, yay!!) off.  It.was.glorious.  I have really missed having a day off during the week, and this was such a treat!

Our weather here in MN has been CRAZY!  It's been so warm.  Alayna and I enjoyed many evening walks/bike rides before the time change!

Then last week this happened!  We got about 6 inches of snow the Friday before Thanksgiving.  It was nice to gt home from work and all hunker down.  We ate and played games!  Saturday the girls got out and made a giant snowman.

Apparently they've been having fun with snapchat filters, haha....

Wednesday Brad took off too and we got all of our Christmas stuff up.  We did our usual hot cider and appetizers while listening to Brad bitch about how the pre-lit tree is missing lights.  Remind you of something, dad????!!!  We always have Elf on while we decorate, I love, love, love this day!!  I love how cozy our house is this time of year...I will have a house tour next week!

Wednesday evening I made the mashed potatoes and homemade rolls, got all the ingredients prepped for stuffing and appetizers.  I was wiped!

Brad and I were up early Thanksgiving morning to start prepping the bird.  I made Mix and Match Mamas Cinnamon Monkey Bread Casserole.  It was good, but I don't think I mixed the eggs well enough.  I will try it again though!  Mousey loved it!

We had my mom, step dad, and my brothers family over.  We really had the best time eating, laughing and eating some more!

We had turkey, sausage and mushroom stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, sweet milk dinner rolls, corn, orange jello salad, cranberry fluff, raspberry bavarian jello salad and of course pies!!

We seriously stuffed ourselves silly, but it was so worth it!

We played games in the afternoon, our favorite was "Utter Nonsense".  SO.MUCH.FUN!!  We all laughed till we cried, it was a blast!

For supper I made a cheese board with assorted cheeses and crackers, and grapes.  And of course, leftovers if you wanted!  I think we were all half asleep by 9 and in bed by 9;30.  Eating and laughing is a lot of work!

Friday morning we (the girls) were up by 5 to head out for some Black Friday shopping.  We stopped at Starbucks first of course!  I forgot to take pics, dang it...We actually found some great deals, even though I had nothing really on my list.  It was just nice to all hang out together!

My brother and his family left early afternoon, it was so wonderful having them here!  I really cherish the time we get together as it doesn't happen often with how busy our lives get.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Fall 2016

Oh blog, how I have missed you.  Seriously.  As grateful as I am to have a job that I love, I feel like I have given up everything I used to love to do.  I need to find that again, so here I am!

We had an amazing fall, truly!  It was CRAZY busy with the girls' activities, but we still made time to do all the fall things!  As much as I love summer, it's damn exhausting!  I love the cool evenings, especially when it gets darker earlier.  To me it's just so cozy, and I get to watch TV!!

So here are some of the things we love about fall...

*snort*

First off.....

Need I say more?  I actually found a wonderful recipe for Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Iowa Girl Eats.  They were SO good and very easy to make!  And along with that was our favorite Pumpkin Scones from Damn Delicious.  I bet I made these 5 or 6 times, they are delicious!!

Second on our list is the pumpkin patch.  We have several around here that we like to visit.  They always have live music, vendors selling homemade items and lots of yummy stuff to buy.  I love that my girls still love to do this with me.

I love that they get just as excited about all the fall!!

September and October were INSANE.  Rachel started a new school this year and absolutely LOVES it!  It was the best (and most stressful) decision we made!  Her volleyball team played awesome, and they were so fun to watch.  We are so proud of this kid and how far she has come in volleyball!

Emma decided to try swimming this year and we are so glad she did!  Emma has amazed us both in how much she learned and how much she improved!  We LOVE watching her swim and I am so happy to see her be a part of a team and all the cool things they do!

Mousey joined orchestra this year and is really enjoying it!  She has graduated from plucking and is learning how to use the bow right now.  It's so fun to see how much better they get in such a short amount of time!  She is also loving 5th grade, I guess she's not such a baby anymore...

October brought Halloween...

I love that they still love to carve pumpkins!

Alayna dressed up as Meredith Grey from Grey's Anatomy and Emma dressed as a witch.  It was a gorgeous night to trick or treat!  We ordered pizzas with some friends and walked the neighborhood in town, so fun!

For the Halloween bus this year the guys dressed as Amish men and we were their hootchie mamas.  It was a ton of fun again!!

I woke up the girls super early one school morning to take them to The Local Blend for an early breakfast.  So much fun to get out of our routine and enjoy each other's company!

As crazy as fall was, we really enjoyed our time from evenings campfires to fall festivals to decorating and enjoying some of our favorite cool weather soups/stews.  

Some of our faves:

Creamy Broccoli Chowder

Panini's

Chicken Pot Pie

Best Ever Chili

Roast Beef Sandwiches

I would like to give a big shout out to all you mamas who work outside the home with littles at home.  I have NO idea how you do it!  My girls are extremely independent and older, but I still feel like a wreck most of the time trying to make that balance of working mom/mom/wife and an actual person, haha!!  I hate that I maybe don't do all the fun little crafts and things that I used to do when I was home with them.   However, I think they're growing up ok.  I hope.  

A Look Into My Crazy World

Me again!  Aren't you impressed??!!  I am.  It's only by chance that I actually have time to write this.  I know that everyone has their challenges,  I really do, but I swear I don't know how some of these blog moms work full time with 3 kids and still manage to write a post every.single.day.  

Here's a look into my week...

Brad left last Saturday for Canada goose hunting.  It's funny how organized and scheduled I am when he's gone.  I'm guessing because I know I don't have the extra help, haha!

Alayna and I were able to get outside Sunday and Monday nights for a walk/bike ride.  It was nice to have her to myself.

Rachel had homecoming last week, love this pic of her and Taylor.  They've been besties since 5th grade.

So let's see, what else is going on...

I have been getting up at 4:45 everyday to get a quick workout in on the treadmill. Prep supper so it's ready tp go when I get home   Make the girls breakfast, get them to school and work from 8-4:30.  Pick up Alayna at Grandmas, pick Rachel and Taylor up from practice, bring Taylor home.

I have been driving kids from practice/to games every night this week.  On top of that, Emma came down with a virus and thankfully mom (love you!!!) was able to take her to the doctor to make sure it wasn't strep.  Our dog Jasmine has something going on, she isn't eating and can hardly get up.  I have to take her to the vet and am not sure how I am going to try and lug an 80 pound lab.  Today I got a call from school that Rachel was having an allergic reaction to something, her eye was almost completely swollen shut.  

Seriously, why does this stuff only happen when Brad's gone???  I'm exhausted.

Alayna needed me to print out pics for a project at school.  I looked on my phone's camera and damn near died when I saw this snapchat pic she did!!

I love this life, don't get me wrong.  We're just at a super busy stage, makes me appreciate the evening like tonight that I am home.

Rachel has a game in Brainerd and I didn't go.  I felt bad, but it just wasn't happening with single parenting this week.  Emma had a meet but didn't swim because I want her to get better.  So it was just mouse and I.  We ordered food for delivery, put up our Halloween decorations and played rummy.  Exactly the kind of night I needed!!