Hello Holidays!

Whew!  What a weekend.  Does it count as a weekend if it's 5 days long?? 

We had a whirlwind weekend over Thanksgiving but it still felt too short.  My cousins and I managed to pull off another delicious feast! We made creamy mashed potatoes, 2 kinds of sweet potatoes, seven layer salad, green bean casserole, vegetable salad, stuffing, cranberry salad, fresh rolls, pumpkin pie and apple pie.  Of course, Grandma and Grandpa took care of the Turkey. YUM!


It's kind of hard to see the food in this pic but doesn't it make your mouth water??

Kurt made the rounds in WL while I was on the Shopping Trip in Des Moines. Let me tell you - there were some great deals. I am a total sucker for bargains so I was constantly tempted to purchase random things that we don't need, haha!  

The girls on our annual Shopping Trip!
Yep...those are matching scarfs. :)

We already have our Christmas tree up and decorated, too.  It looks beautiful and it was fun to decorate our house for the holiday season!  We even baked cookies and drank hot cocoa to fully enjoy the view.  I love having a Christmas tree -- the first thing I do in the morning is plug it in!!  It's a simple thing that makes us cheerful.

We hope you're all counting your blessings this holiday season!  We are. :)

Brace Yourself....

... I'm about to go directly into Christmas mode!!  I started listening to Christmas music this week at the office, I bought the first Christmas gift of the season and I've been stashing away all my black Friday coupons... it's almost time!! :)

We're looking forward to Thanksgiving though, too.  This week will be a nice short one ending with a feast and family, it's tough to top that!  I'll be heading to the Lake to help my Grandma pre-prepare the Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday along with the other girl grandchildren in my family.  This is one of my favorite traditions and I look forward to it every year.  The best part is that Grandma has everything totally organized when we all get there -- so we can complete each recipe and she voluntarily does the dishes to keep up with the mess.  Who does that? Doing dishes is hands-down my least favorite chore.  When I was growing up I would "trade chores" with my best friend/cousin Kelly so that she would do the dishes at my house and I could sweep the floor or vacuum at her house during the summer.  Genius huh?  ...It didn't stop there either.  In college I once paid my friend to do my dishes and I frequently threw dirty dishes away in loo of washing them.  HA!  Don't worry they were cheap plastic dorm-dishes.  So yeah, I think I've come quite a ways since then because I actually DO the dishes now.  Maybe not as often as my Mom thinks I should but I do what I can.  =)

Back to holiday chat... Another one of my favorite traditions is just around the corner and I'm really excited about it!  Each year all the women on my mom's side of the family take an Annual Shopping Trip together.  We go somewhere we don't usually get to shop and spend a whole weekend doing Christmas shopping.  This year we're heading to Des Moines and we're tackling the busiest weekend of the year -- wish us luck!

Now that I've blabbed about all the glamorous elements of the upcoming holiday season I think it's important that we take some time to actually take in the real stuff.  Thanksgiving seems to be a holiday that everyone understands -- I've never heard someone say they don't do Thanksgiving.  Probably because we all have things to be thankful for.  Here's what we're thankful for this year:

- Our amazing families that continually offer us support.  We love you guys!
- Not just shelter, but our very own house.
- Love. Not everyone is lucky enough to find "the one" this young.
- Faith.  We are continually trying to build our faith, we're blessed to have found a church that inspires us. 
- Steady income so we don't have to stress too much.
- Our pups, even though they can be a major pain they're fun to have around.
- Our health.  Knock on wood, we're healthy & happy!
- Our safety... 4 months in Waterloo and no problems yet! ha! j/k
- Kurt's handiness.  Not sure what we'd do if he wasn't a fix-it kind of guy!
- Friends.  We wish we could see more of you (you know who you are) - but we are grateful to have you as friends regardless. :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

No Report.

November has been uneventful so far so we really have nothing cool to report.  In the spirit of blogging I figured we ought to post something so here it goes!

Kurt has jumped on the "No Shave November" bandwagon....sort of.  Technically he didn't shave the last week in October either but evidently facial hair is handy when you work outside so I can't blame him. The other reason I say "sort of" is because he's still shaving his 'stash which results in this... 

Contrary to popular belief this man is NOT Amish.

Kurt is convinced that people treat him different now that he has an "Amish" beard.  It's pretty funny -- a lot of people actually comment on it.  Since he has no intentions of shaving this winter I guess we'll be dealing with a whole different monster next month!  Eww, long beards creep me out.  He'll be like Santa Claus by the time Christmas is here!! 

On another note, again pretty boring, Pita got a new T-Shirt.  You remember how he totally changes when he's clothed?  We proved that theory when we took off his Halloween sweater and he slowly regressed back to the weird-o dog that he was before... He seems to like his new shirt and I gotta say, we get a kick out of it too!  Check it out...

Hilarious, right?  Now he's a real man.

That's all for now!  Have a fabulous weekend!!

Happy Halloween!

So we made you wait to see our 2010 Halloween costumes and we're hoping that you're giddy with excitement for the big reveal.  Haha - ok, fine maybe you don't really give a darn but we still had fun and we hope the pictures make you smile!! :)

 Little Red Riding Hood & the Big Bad Wolf

Yes, that is Kurt under that oh-so-realistic wolf mask (in case the cowboy boots didn't give him away).  And yes, that is a real grandma nightgown that he is wearing!!  We always have tons of fun hunting for the perfect pieces to make our costumes come together and this year was no different.  We found that beauty at Goodwill and in my opinion it totally completed the Big Bad Wolf's look. :)

Not to brag or anything but we won the Couples Costume contest at the Simon Halloween party, too.  (Ok, we're bragging a little).  It was a chilly night to be outside the bonfire, yummy soup and awesome company made up for the cool weather!  It was a great way to celebrate Halloween!