Weekend Wrap Up Post

Before I start my wrap up post, I just want to point out that there are now 6 weekends between now and Christmas. SIX, PEOPLE.  

Just kidding.  Kind of.  I'm sticking to the pledge I made last year, where I don't, under any circumstances, panic over Christmas.  I will enjoy the season and continue my mantra of "if it gets done, it gets done...if not, oh well".  We'll see how it goes! 

image courtesy of www.runningwithspoons.com

 On Friday night, I got together with some friends who also happen to be fellow preschool moms....we try to get together once a month or so, but I haven't been able to make it the past few months due to other commitments, so I was super excited to be back this month!  We had a BLAST.  I've posted on here before that I'm a firm believer in taking time for yourself with just friends....of course, I love hanging out with the kids and having date nights with Brian, too, but taking off your wife and mama hat for a night can be so refreshing!

Saturday morning brought another basketball game for Jake (I have some video that I need to sort through, so I'll put those in a separate post) but here is a little picture teaser:

That afternoon, Brian headed out to do yardwork and Liam took a nice long nap, so Jake and I spent some quality time with his Legos.  In case you haven't figured it out by now, Jake is a super active kid with seemingly endless quantities of energy....however, if he's in the mood, he will sit down with Legos for hours!! 

Parents: did you know you can sign your kid up for a FREE Lego Club that comes with a magazine subscription?  Jake looks forward to it arriving in the mail every month...there are always some activities to do in the magazine (word searches, connect the dots, etc), coloring pages, stories, and a few Lego tutorials.  On Saturday, he was working on constructing Santa's sled from the tutorial in the new magazine :)  Click here to subscribe: http://www.lego.com/en-US/club

After Liam woke up, I needed to head to Target to grab a few things.  Remember the little bird I posted about on Favorite Finds Friday??  He may have found his way into my cart.  Something that did not find its way into my cart, but did end up on my head include:

I snapped this selfie so I could show the kids, then came home and told the kids that mommy took so long to shop because I got a terrible headache while in the store because something fell off a shelf and onto my head.  Jake looked horrified and I asked if he wanted to see a picture...I showed him this on my phone and I thought he was going to cry. Oops.  #mommyfail   Liam laughed even before I told him it was pretend.  I see how it is.

Saturday night, Brian and I had an in-home date night....meaning that, instead of doing our usual routine where we binge watch HGTV and fall asleep on the couch, we watched a movie instead. We chose "American Hustle" and it was ok.  I enjoyed it for the most part, though it got weird at times, and it could have been about 30 minutes shorter.  But hey, I stayed awake for it!

Sunday morning, we headed to church/sunday school....Jake is my little yinzer at heart and resists wearing anything that is non-steelers on game days, so I'm just happy to get him into real pants (translation: non-athletic pants) on Sundays.  I consider real pants a win these days.

 

That afternoon, we watched a Steelers game that I don't even want to talk about, then Brian and the boys headed out to do some leaf clean up while I put dinner together.  I went out when I was done, just in time to help for about 5 minutes before we came inside since it was getting dark.  I have impeccable timing.

The good news is, our trees have dropped *almost* all of their leaves.  *happy dance*!!!

The rest of the night brought lasagna, homework, baths, then DVR catch up (Parenthood!) after the littles were in bed.  Hope you had a great weekend!!

Favorite Finds Friday

Linking up again over at Friday Favorites!!

Favorite Find #1: Anthropologie Monogram Mug

I came across these on Pinterest a few months ago, and knew that I would be placing it on my birthday/Christmas wish list for anyone who asked.  I don't know why I was so drawn it to, but I was....it's just so simple yet pretty. 

image courtesy of theknottybride.com

Favorite Find #2: Old Navy Pixie Pants
It's rare for me to rave about pants because in general, I detest them (unless they are sweatpants or PJ pants, of course)  But especially dress pants...I feel like it's hard to find them to fit, I hate having to get them hemmed, and I get really annoyed when they lose their shape/stretch out really fast.  So imagine my surprise when I took a cue from the Pinterest Told Me To blog after rave reviews and ordered a pair for myself during a sale.  The only regret I have about these pants is that I didn't order them in more colors when they were on sale!!

I have them in black, but I'm hoping for a huge Black Friday sale so that I can expand my collection.  These are by far, the best work pants I have found.  They are comfy, have just enough stretch to them that they look good but aren't suffocating, and the length is perfect. (most of the reviews said to size up 1 from your normal size...I did that and I think it was a wise decision)

Other colors I love (all images from oldnavy.com):

color: dark steel

color: wine purple

Favorite Find #3: Adorable Christmas Decor at Target!

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not one of those people who is annoyed by Christmas stuff showing up in stores in November.  In fact, it kind of makes my heart skip a beat to turn a corner in my favorite store (hello, Target) and find all of the shiny, glittery splendidness of Christmas staring me in the face. 

 The other day, I may or may not have taken a little stroll through the decor aisle and I'm pretty sure I gasped out loud when I saw these little guy on the shelf:

And guess how much they were?  $5!  FIVE DOLLARS.  Somehow I walked away from them....but I have been thinking about them ever since.  They may just need to come home with me the next time I'm in Target....

Recipe: Smoky Chicken and Cheesy Potato Crockpot Casserole

So, um...yeah.  Technically, it's no longer "Crocktober" considering that was a little pun for October, and it's now November 6th.  Oops.  Forgive me, I'm posting this recipe anyway!

Smoky Chicken and Cheesy Potato Crockpot Casserole

Original recipe found on Better Homes and Garden: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chicken/smoky-chicken-and-cheesy-potato-casserole/

Ingredients:

•  10 3/4 ounce can condensed cream of chicken with herbs soup

• 8 oz sour cream

• 6 ounces smoked cheddar cheese, shredded (1-1/2 cups)

• 28 ounce package frozen loose-pack diced hash brown potatoes with onion and peppers, thawed (I couldn't find any that had peppers and onions included, so I just chopped up my own and added them in)

• 3 cups chopped smoked or roasted chicken or turkey (I have no idea what's involved in locating a roasted chicken or turkey, so I just threw a regular chicken breast in whole then shredded it at the end)

• Crushed croutons (optional)

Directions:

1. Lightly coat the inside of a 3-1/2- or 4-quart slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. In the cooker combine soup, sour cream, cheese, frozen potatoes, and chicken. (I use crockpot liners, so I skipped the cooking spray part)
2. Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 5 to 6 hours. If desired, top each serving with crushed croutons. Makes 6 servings.

Above is the finished product in my crockpot (I forgot to crush the croutons, so we kind of had to do that as we were eating, oops!)  Below is the picture from the BHG site, which looks remarkably more delicious:

photo courtesy of bhg.com

Review: I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it.  Brian thought it was really good and cleared his plate. Jake wouldn't try it (no surprise there, he has an intense fear of melted cheese), and Liam took one bite and declared it "no good".  Take all of those reviews with a grain of salt, I suppose :)  As I said, I didn't love it or hate it, so I'm not sure that I would make it again, but it was super easy to make and it made a ton so it would be an easy meal to throw together if we were having other family members over or something. 

Aunt Amy and Uncle Ben are MARRIED!!!

Last weekend, we were honored to take part in a very special day....Brian's sister Amy got married!!!  The kids are thrilled that they can now officially call Ben "Uncle Ben" and the wedding was just amazing.  Unfortunately, I got close to no pictures that day but I'll be sure to share some once the photographer posts. 

We were able to take some days off of work and drive out Thursday morning, which was nice because we were able to spend some time relaxing with everyone that afternoon and evening, before we had to enter full-on wedding prep mode Friday!  On Friday morning, we met up with Ben's parents for a little nature walk at a nearby park:

That evening, we had to get ready for the big day with a little rehearsal at the church, followed by dinner.  It happened to be Halloween and Amy and Ben LOVE Halloween, so they decided to make it a costume party....I was so impressed by some costumes, everyone really went all out!

Danny and Sally

me and Brian

Our little family :)

Batman and Robin to the rescue!

Uncle Pip and Aunt Reen, aka-Duck Dynasty

Amy and Brian

GG, me, Pappy

Sally and Sarah (aka-Theresa Guidice)

Amy and Ben-professional camp counselors :)

  We all tried to get some sleep that night (I know it took me awhile to fall asleep, I was so excited for the next day...I can only imagine how the bride was feeling!)  As I said, I have close to no pictures of that day, but here are some selfies of me and the boys in the car on the way to the church!!

 
A shot of me and Brian in the limo after the ceremony....ready to get the party started!!

And one of the boys shaking it on the dance floor....they killed it out there!!  With the exception of a few very short breaks, they were on the dance floor all.night.long.  They had a blast!

I have to add this one in here....25 minutes of yanking bobby pins out of my hair later, and I finally got it all down...imagine my surprise when I discovered it was still curly underneath all of those pins and hairspray!  (my hair NEVER curls, and certainly never holds a curl even if you can get it to curl for a few minutes)

The boys were wiped on Sunday....late nights 3 nights in a row with visiting people and parties....time change on Saturday night/Sunday morning (they slept until 8am on Sunday...you know how rare this is for them!)  So this is what they looked like for a large portion of the car ride home on Sunday:

 Stay tuned for more pictures, hopefully soon.....

Wordless Wednesday: Gracie's New Cold Weather Wardrobe

Happy Red Cup Season!!

I had to go have some testing done this morning (nothing serious, and everything looked good) but it was a fasting test...and a loooooooong fasting test.  I got up at 5:30 this morning, got to the hospital at 7:40am, and didn't walk out until 9:30am.  That is an excessively long time for me to go without caffeine considering the fact that on days I get up at 5:30 I'm usually taking my first sips of caffeine goodness by 5:45!

After all of that, I think I more than deserved some Starbucks, right??  What makes a pumpkin spice latte even better than it already is?  A PSL in a red cup, of course!!!

Happy red cup season!!! 

Hello, November.

image courtesy of www.dearest-love.com

Oh hey there, November.  You just crept right on in here on me, didn't you?  One minute I'm in a state of bliss because it's just the very beginning of fall, and now you're here!  Full on autumn mode.  Welcome!

Sometimes I feel like November gets the shaft....and I'm totally guilty of playing into this, too!  You have October, and that month really gets all the credit for fall.  That's when the leaves start to change, people are practically running each other over to get to Starbucks for the first PSL of the season, and you see drones of families at the pumpkin patch every weekend.  But November?  It's like a hurdle to get past to make way for Christmas. Don't worry, November...I may try to rush you at times just because I love Christmas and all of the glittery things that come with it, but I love you, too. 

In honor of my love confession of November, here is my list of top things I'm looking forward to about this month:

1.  Trying out the NEW Chestnut Praline Latte at Starbucks
 Facebook was nice enough to inform me last week that Starbucks would be releasing a new holiday drink this season called the Chestnut Praline Latte....one early review of it said it tasted like Teddy Grahams in a cup.  Sign.me.up!

image courtesy of www.starbucksmelody.com

It looks like it will be released on November 12th...mark your calendar!

2.  The Starbucks Red Cup
I'm sensing a Starbucks trend in this post...but honestly, how happy does the red cup make you?  I don't know why, but my heart feels happy the first time I get a seasonal drink and it's served to me in this festive little beauty. 

image courtesy of www.packchannel.com

3. Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving.  Of COURSE, Thanksgiving.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, biscuits, pie....I'm starving just thinking about all of it.  It's also just my kind of a day....aside from the cooking and serving, there's always a laid back feel to Thanksgiving.  Most of the time, our day is spent lounging around in PJ's as long as possible, stuffing ourselves silly, then kicking back with some football and black friday ads for the rest of the day.  Which is what it's all about, right?  Time with family and being thankful for the past year and what is to come.

image courtesy of www.inspiredeverymoment.wordpress.com

4.  Black Friday Shopping!
My last item segue-ways  nicely into my next favorite thing...which is Black Friday Shopping!  This is, to me, the Official Start of Christmas Season.  This kicks it all off for me! This is the day that I turn on Christmas music in the car for the first time (you know, at 4am on the way to Target!) and really find myself getting into the holiday spirit. I know I've posted about this on here before, but that's really why I love black friday so much...yes, it's great getting some awesome deals and checking off some items from my Christmas shopping list...but more than that, it's the hustle and bustle of being out with all of the people, having fun with whoever I'm with that year (either my mom or mother-in-law, and sometimes some extra friends we pick up along the way!), and enjoying the day.  We never feel this crazy pressure to buy-buy-buy a bunch of stuff, and we are rarely looking for any big ticket items, so it's low stress.  And we usually top it off with a yummy brunch or lunch out somewhere...can't beat that!! 

Maybe we need to step up our game this year and get some matching shirts??

image courtesy of skreened.com

image courtesy of wanelo.com

shirt available in Etsy shop josiekatstrunk

What are you looking forward to in November??