Christmas

We have family movie night each night the week of Christmas but Thursday night Libby went to bed a little upset that we hadn't watched a movie. Well, little did she know that was because we had something a little different planned. She got into bed and we said goodnight and closed her door. About two minutes later we burst into her room and yelled, "SURPRISE! It's Christmas cruising time!!" During the two minutes that Libby was in her room alone thinking she was going to sleep Ryan and I had changed into our pj's and got some hot chocolate ready. After we ran into her room we quickly scooped her up from her bed and ran out to the car. She had no idea what was going on. :-) We drove around looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music. Once we got back home and she got back into bed she said that having the surprise Christmas lights viewing was worth skipping our nightly movie. :-)

I was off for Christmas Eve so Libby and I spent the day at home in our pj's watching Christmas movies and making Christmas crafts. Ryan got home at 2:30pm from work and we left at 4:30pm to head to his parents' house for an early dinner followed by the Christmas Eve church service. After church we went back to their house to open presents and have lots of baked goodies that Ryan's mom made. We got home Christmas Eve night and Ryan and Libby each opened a present (pj's) and we put out cookies for Santa and Libby got into bed at about 10:00pm. At about 10:15 she heard Santa's sleigh bells and knew that he had entered the area so she tried to go to sleep as fast as she could. Santa's sleigh bells rang a few more times faintly outside of her window and each time she'd close her eyes even tigher and giggle.

Christmas morning she was up at 6:30 ready to tear into her presents. She was very happy with everything and said that everything was perfect. :-) I hope that everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did!

Last Sunday we had a relaxed day spent at home so Libby and I did our holiday baking - for several hours! We made lots of different yummy treats. We made so much that I made a tray for Ryan's friend who was over to take home with him and I also made a big tray for Ryan to take to his office Monday morning.

Wednesday night Libby and I baked some ornaments and Thursday night she watched a personalized video that Santa sent to her. Thursday night I remembered at about 11:00pm that Libby's class was having their holiday party Friday! So, at 11:00pm I started baking a cake. I finally finished decorating it at 1:00am but it was pretty cute and Libby said that the whole class LOVED it. Well then, that made it all worth the lack of sleep! :-) Since I was baking, anyway, I decided to make two identical cakes...one for Libby's class party and one for Ryan's office. Ryan said they loved it, too.

Saturday Libby and I met Karen, Debs, and Jan for our Christmas get together. We had lunch at The Great Outdoors Restaraunt in High Springs and then browsed an antique shop before heading home.

Busy weekend

Yesterday Libby's class had a field trip to a dairy farm. I'm always up for a field trip...even one where we have to stand out in 40 degree weather and smell cow manure for three hours. :-) They learned some interesting things about the cows and how milk gets from the cow to the store.
Libby, her best friend, Maddy, and their teacher, Ms. Hinds

After the field trip Libby left with me and we went to see Santa since it was in the middle of the day on a Friday and there wouldn't be crowds. After seeing Santa Libby went back to my office with me which she always enjoys.

This afternoon Libby and I did our annual tradition of going to see the Cinderella ballet. It was pretty - as always.

Tomorrow we'll be baking some more goodies and also baking some ornaments for the tree!

Happy 1st birthday, Denali!

Today is Denali's 1st birthday! I think Ryan was more excited about Denali's birthday today than he is when it is his own birthday! I went to the pet store today and got Denali and Bella pup-cakes and Ryan got Denali a birthday banner, a birthday card, birthday hat, and a birthday medal. :-) Hopefully Denali enjoyed it today. Miss Bella got the same treats so that they could celebrate together and we'll do it all again in two and a half months when Baby Bella turns 1 year old!

I'm back...and boy have I been busy!

I haven't been around here for two weeks but I have a good excuse! :-) For a week and a half I didn't have a spare moment to even think about getting onto my compter at night while at home. With two puppies and light-colored carpet it was very necessary for us to take out the carpeting and put in hardwood floors. Neither Ryan nor I are very handy people but Ryan was convinced we could do it ourselves. I was terrified. I mean, it's our flooring for crying out loud. It's sort of a large part of our house and very visible! :-) But somehow we actually pulled it off. It was a frustrating, painful, and terrible experience but we got it all down. We finished our bedroom Wednesday night/Thursday morning and we still have to put down the trim work but this weekend has been very busy so we'll get to that shortly.

I don't have a before picture of our living room but here is what it looked like the day that we first went through the house while we were still house hunting:
And here it is once we finished the floor in the living room:
Here is a picture of our bedroom right after we first moved in last year:
And here it is now that that we've finished the floor:
So, I mentioned that we finished the floor Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I woke up Wednesday morning to get ready for work. That night after work Ryan and I started working on the floor in our bedroom at 7:00pm...we finished it promptly at 3:00am and then we had to get all of the furniture back in place before we could go to sleep. We finally crawled into bed at 4:00am Thursday morning. I slept for an hour and 45 minutes and then woke up at 5:45am to head out to do some Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving morning. I got back home at 7:15am and went back to sleep for a couple of hours and then it was time to get up and get ready for Thanksgiving. So, on a grand cummulative total of four hours of sleep Ryan and I headed over to his parents' house to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We had a very nice time and way to much food! :-) We left there about 4:00pm and Ryan went home and I headed to Jacksonville to spend the night with Debs so that we could do our annual Black Friday shopping spree. Instead of going to sleep and trying to get a little nap we looked through the sales ads and planned out our plan of attack. We left her house at 10:30pm Thursday night and didn't return until 10:45am Friday morning! We shopped for 12 hours!! There was lots of caffeine involved throughout the course of the night and we covered a lot of ground but I think we both did a good job. After we got back to her house we both took a two hour nap and after the nap I headed home.

This morning I met Karen at Starbucks at 9:30 and we headed to a craft festival! We thought we were all out of craft festivals after the one we went to on October 30th but there was one more in store for us!! We both came away with some good finds and were both very happy with our purchases.

Now I'm home watching the last regular season game for the Gators this year (and this has been one brutal year for those who love Orange and Blue) and tomorrow I'll hopefully get my house all Christmasfied. :-) I'm behind on my decorating this year but that's all because of the floor. In addition, I'm worried about how the dogs (especially Bella) are going to behave with a Christmas tree in the room so keep your fingers crossed for me! :-)

One last thing, we finished our Thanksgiving tree this week. We missed a few days of adding our leaves of things we are thankful for to the tree (and that, too, was because of the floor!). My favorite leaf on the tree was one that Libby wrote and the thing she was thankful for that day was for her birth! How cute! :-) Here is the tree on the first night of November and the finished tree on Thanksgiving:

"Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson,
Yet our full-leaved willows are in teh freshest green.
such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing
With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen."
~William Cullen Bryant

Girls Weekend!

"Like a graceful ballet dancer, the autumn leaves flutter about."

This weekend the fabulous four girls went on our biannual girls weekend! The weekend started off on Friday night when Karen and I went to Jacksonville to spend the night with Debs. Saturday morning we were up and at Jan's place to pick her up by 9:00 and after a quick stop at Starbucks we were on our way to St. Marys, Ga. I honestly don't even know how I stumbled across St. Marys on the internet but I'm glad I did because it reminded me of a mini-Savannah. I absolutely fell in love with Savannah when we went there last November for our girls weekend.

We had such a great time in St. Marys! We got there Saturday morning and looked around at the shops down by the river. At noon we headed over to Lucky Dawgs to watch the Gator game. It was a cute little place with a Key West theme. We were successful in getting them to turn all four televisions in the place to the Gator game...don't forget - we were in Georgia and accomplished this feat! :-) After the Gators dominated Vanderbilt we left to check into our hotel room. Unfortunately, someone extended their stay and the hotel was forced to upgrade us to a suite for the same price as the double room that I booked. Darn!! :-) We had a dining room, kitchen with a stove and full size refrigerator, a washer/dryer, and then there was the bedroom. We had so much space! :-)

We left after getting settled into the room and did a little more shopping and then ate dinner down by the river. The restaurant where we had dinner didn't have much of a dessert selection so we walked down to another restaurant and we each ordered our desserts and we sat and talked and ate and laughed until we cried. It was fantastic!! Such a fun night!!

Sunday morning we had some Belgian waffles for breakfast and then headed out to a few places where I wanted to take pictures before we left. One of the places where we went was an old cemetery. I don't usually randomly go to cemeteries and take pictures but it was the history of this cemetery that appealed to me. We saw graves of Confederate soldiers and the grave of a Revolutionary War soldier! I was totally fascinated!

After that we headed back to Jacksonville because Jan had a baby shower that she had to head to but Debs, Karen, and I did a little more shopping before Karen and I left to head home.

It was such a great weekend!!!

In the parade...

"Radiant joy is everywhere
Spirits in tune to the spicy air,
Thrill in the glory of each day.
Life's worth living when we say, November"

This weekend is homecoming for the high school in the town where Ryan works as the market leader for Capital City Bank. His office decided sort of at the last minute to enter the parade so they didn't put together a float but they did want a presence in the parade. He went and picked up Libby from afterschool (because if you can't have a beautiful float you need a beautiful little girl!!) They threw out candy to the crowds and apparently they were a big hit. Ryan said that Libby was a little hesitant the first couple of times she tossed the candy but then she really got into it and they both ended up having a great time.

Here's the one and only picture from the evening (Ryan is in the "Twinkle" costume - which is the "mascot" for Capital City Bank). By the way, it was my idea to attach the Capital City sign to the side of Jason's truck. They were just planning on riding in the back of the truck and tossing out candy. Capital City has such a large presence in the town where Ryan works people would have instantly recognized the trademark star on the Twinkle costume but I thought it certainly couldn't hurt to have some signage on the truck, too!

"A solitary maple on a woodside flames in single scarlet,
recalls nothing so much as the daugther of a noble house
dressed for a fancy ball, with the whole family gathered
around to admire her before she goes.
~Henry James

Month of Thanksgiving

"Have you ever noticed a tree standing naked against the sky, How beautiful it is?
All its branches are outlined, and in its nakedness there is a poem,there is a song.
Every leaf is gone and it is waiting for the spring. When the spring comes
it again fills the tree with the music of many leaves,
Which in due season fall and are blown away.
And this is the way of life."
~Krishnamurti

Last year we did a Thanksgiving tree ...each night for the week leading up to Thanksgiving we would each write something that we were thankful for on a leaf and attach it to the tree. I loved how it turned out so much that this year we are doing it all month long! I didn't post a picture of it yesterday because I had to finally get caught up with posting about the Halloween weekend but here it is today. It's pretty bare since we are just two days into it but by Thanksgiving it will be full of autumn leaves stating all of the wonderful blessings in our life for which we are thankful!
By the way, while I enjoyed decorating our entry table in Halloween decor for Libby I'm so happy to have my fall table back! :-)

Halloween weekend

"There is nothing quite like a fall day. The cool crisp air, pumpkins in the fields, and playing in the leaves. The smile on your face can warm a chilly day."

Saturday morning Libby and I met up with Karen, Amanda, and Sarah and we went to the last fall festival of the season. We got there early so we didn't have to battle the crowds that we experienced the weekend before and it was well worth getting up early. We spent a few hours at the festival and then we left and Libby and I were off to Starke for a family gathering for a few hours. We made it home in time for me to be able to watch the Gator game (and thank goodness the Gators were able to finally get another win...whew, October was a ROUGH month!).

The game was close and I was helping Libby get ready to go trick-or-treating during the 4th quarter of the game. Newberry chose to do their trick-or-treating Saturday night instead of Sunday night which really helped my weekend flow more smoothly. The only problem is that the 4th quarter ended just after it was dark - which means it ended just when I had promised Libby that we'd leave to go trick-or-treating. That would have been perfect timing - except that the game went into overtime! It actually pained me to turn the tv off and head out of the door to take Libby trick-or-treating AT THE BEGINNING OF OVERTIME! Can you believe that? Yeah, neither can I! Just a few minutes later we were walking down the street trick-or-treating with the hundreds and hundreds of other children and a lady in front of me on her cell phone screams out, "WE WON!!! WE WON! 34-31!" The street eruped in applause...that made everyone's night to hear that we finally won!! :-) I told Libby that she wouldn't quite understand it now but one day she'd understand just how much I love her by knowing that I left at the beginning of overtime during a Florida/Georgia football game to take her trick-or-treating. :-) I think that act alone puts me at the top of the list for Mother of the Year! :-)
Trick-or-treating was fun. I LOVE trick-or-treating here. So many of the houses are all decked out in Halloween decor and you have hundreds and hundreds of children running back and forth across the streets in their costumes and it just makes me feel like I'm in a Disney Halloween movie! Last year I took Libby into the haunted house that one house makes up every year and she was terrified. This year I was sure we'd skip it but she said that she definitely wanted to go. It still freaked her out a little bit but she did enjoy it. :-)

When we got home she took a shower to wash the black hairspray out of her hair and to wash off all the makeup and the three of us had family movie night where we watched Scared Shrek-less. :-) It wasn't the best tv special staring Shrek that we've seen but it was nice sitting with our little family, eating popcorn, and spending time together.

Sunday afternoon Libby and I met up with one of her friends and her friend's mom and we headed out to the corn maze. Just like last year it was an afternoon of fall fun. There is so much for the children to do out there that you can barely squeeze it all in. They rode the barrel train (twice...and the driver even made me and the other mom ride up front with him), and we took a tractor ride (the bumpiest ride of my life),
and a hay ride out to feed the cows and horses.
they played in the corn box (like a sandbox but filled with corn kernels)

played on the tower of hay,
played on the obstacle course,
rode the pedal cars and the tire swing

and we made our way through the corn maze
It was such a fun day!

And I still have more things to look forward to because this upcoming weekend is our bi-annual girls weekend. Me and three other wonderful ladies are heading out of town for the weekend and I CAN'T WAIT!!

Storybook character costume parade and more fall fun

"I love the leaves I do not know why.
Is it their colors or how they fly?
They crunch and crinkle under my feet;
I pile them up and take a leap!"
~Beath Paulsen

Schools were out today so yesterday was the Storybook Character Costume Parade. Libby decided to be a vampire this year. Except at first she wanted to be either Bella or Alice from Twilight. Ok, so I'd dress her in jeans and a shirt and that would be her costume? So, she settled on more of a Dracula look. :-)

Thursday night after dinner Libby made our annual chocolate covered apples but this year both of us were very impatient when it came to making the apples so it was a little more frustrating than usual but they still turned out tasting delicious! :-)

We also finally carved "Maggie" her pumpkin. Libby drew on the face that she wanted and we both said goodbye to our beautiful pumpkin and then I pierced her perfect pumpkin skin and made Maggie into a jack-o-lantern.
Tonight after dinner we got a phone call from the mom of Libby's best friend Maddy asking i Libby could come spend the night. This was the only night this weekend that a sleepover would work so I agreed and she took a quick bath and got her stuff together and I took her over to Maddy's house. When I went into Libby's room to tell her she was spending the night with Maddy she started shrieking and jumping up and down...it was too cute! :-) I will be back over there to pick her up at 7:15am in the morning because Libby and I are meeting Karen and Amanda to go to another (and our last) fall festival. Tomorrow is going to be a busy, busy, busy day but I'm really looking forward to it! After the fall festival Libby and I have a family thing to go to in Starke for a few hours, then we'll come home to watch the Florida/Georgia game and then it will be time to get ready for trick-or-treating because Newberry is doing their trick-or-treating Saturday night so the children aren't up late on a school night. Sunday afternoon Libby and I are meeting a friend of hers at the corn maze for an afternoon of fall fun. This weekend is going to be amazing!!