Giving Thanks 2016

We've just enjoyed a 5 1/2 day holiday break and I'm back to record the highlights, as is my civic duty. 

First up: the traditional Thanksgiving class party with Blake. 

He made stuff. I looked at it. And wondered why I had shown up at the start of the hour-long party instead of 10 minutes before it ended when school was let out. I should know better by now. 

Next: helping Jana and her family move into their new home in the country! 

I helped Jana clean and set up her kitchen, but the most important part was actually tracking the distance and time from my house to hers so we both know exactly how long we need to give ourselves for emergency TV show viewings together. 

Later that evening: Surprise engagement party for Mitch & Annie!

Oh my goodness, even though I was given a pretty obvious clue as to why we were invited over for a "special evening with Annie and Mitch's families", I still cried and cried and CRIED with happiness for my sweet Annie! We are so happy for her and Mitchell :)

Thanksgiving Day: Gathering No. 1

We loaded up and traveled over the mountains and through the woods all of 8 miles to spend Thanksgiving with Russ's family at his sister's house. (Don't mind B-diddy in the backseat there, he's going incognito for the day.)

It was yummy and lovely and relaxing and everything holidays with family and friends should be.

Thanksgiving Day: Gathering No. 2

Around 5 pm we headed 5 miles back towards home to pop in at my cousin Stephanie's house for Wilson thanksgiving, where we showed up just in time for dessert!

We spent the rest of the evening there, and again... yummy, lovely, relaxing. Family is my favorite.

Late Thanksgiving night: Black Friday shopping!

Mum, Tricia and I were joined for the first time by Kendall and my niece, Debby, and we loved having them along! We didn't get home until 3:30 am but as always, it was totally fun and crazy to be out bargain hunting together in the middle of the night. Of course, I then spent the next three days straight napping my afternoons away. I'm all caught up now ;) 

A Holly Golightly costume (and a couple other things)

Ah, the glorious tradition of powder puff football to wind up school spirit week. (Kendall is #92)

My kids have long loved spirit week - where each day of the week is a different dress-up theme and there are usually special activities (like above), all while working together for a cause (last week it was a canned food drive for Thanksgiving food boxes to give out to the community.)

One of the days was "celebrity day" and Kendall decided at the eleventh hour to try and put together a Breakfast at Tiffany's outfit.

{Holly Golightly Goes to School}

This consisted of my sophomore year high school homecoming dress, which I was just as shocked as Kendall to discover still hanging in the back of our coat closet, a black fitted tee to make it dresscode appropriate, the tiara Kendall wore as the flowergirl in my sister's wedding 11 years ago, the necklace I just wore to my brother's wedding in September, Kendall's sunglasses, and a pair of black trouser socks snipped off at the toes in lieu of elbow length gloves. 

For only having half an hour before school started to come up with this emsemble, we felt we hadn't done too shabbily. Sadly, we couldn't come up with a single last minute substitution for a cigarette holder. Whatcha gonna do. 

And now for the "couple other things"...

My husband took this picture on his phone while eating out at work and proudly showed it to me to the other night. I laughed at it (well, him) because he always makes fun of me for taking food pics, and he's not on any form of social media to share it, so I asked him why he took it. "To show Cooper the bacon!" Hahaha. Men. 

And lastly, puppy update coming at you live... they remain deliciously adorable and precious. 

The end. 

Just the High Points {Life Lately}

I'm just going to start off by saying that yesterday I finished off the last of a Costco-sized bottle of A1 sauce on my elk steak that Russ cooked for dinner, and after tossing the bottle in the garbage and eating my meal, I realized I couldn't remember a time before that bottle of A1 sauce was sitting in our fridge door, so I retrieved it to check out the expiration date and was horrified to realize it was in 2007. That's expired in 2007, not made. DEAR SAINTS ABOVE.

And... I'm alive today so I figured, hey, maybe I should blog.

The last two weeks have been incredibly busy for us as a family. The weekend before last we were in Redmond, Oregon for the 1A volleyball State Finals, where Russ and I cheered on our daughter's team (we won the championship!) and also helped cook the team meals all weekend; I came home to a full week of last minute planning and preparation for Scrap Around the Clock, the huge 33-hour scrapbooking event I'm in charge of twice a year; we watched the elections and our minds exploded, along with the rest of the country; I ran Scrap Around the Clock with my scrap crew, the same weekend that we celebrated 4 different nephew's and niece's birthdays; basketball season just started up again; and oh, our dog Miley had puppies.

PUPPIES!

So here's a little pictoral recap:

Scenes from Redmond

Scenes from Scrap Around the Clock

And the best part of all...

6 little boys! We are in for a fun next couple of months :)

What I Wore No. 306

No. 1

Tommy Hilfiger shirt, American Eagle jeans, DSW boots, handknitted scarf (made by me), Nickel & Suede earrings

No. 2 

Old Navy shirt, Big Star jeans, Trend Shoes booties, Fred Meyer scarf

I get my arm cast off today... HURRAH! Button downs ended up being the easiest thing to wear over it (although the buttoning up took some concentrated effort), but I'm not going to lie, yesterday I wore my stretchy knit pajama top that I had slept in to parent/teacher conferences because I just COULD NOT anymore. All the praise hands for self-dressing, folks ;)