Pre-Thanksgiving Fun

What a rush! It never ceases to amaze me how much can go into one meal when it is a special occassion. We started the kids Thanksgiving Break by going out to breakfast and then a walk around our favorite park's lake.

Then we got home and prepped some stuff for the big day! Here we go...

Centerpieces ~ The one above were grasses and leaves from our yard. The one below is just some fun festive items we bought as well as gathered from the yard.

I can't resist those little hands.

Reagan got a great shot of us rolling up the cinnamon rolls.



 Looking forward to a great Thanksgiving with our family!!

Meet My New Neighbors

We live about a block from my new neighbors, and I really like them. They've never stopped by to introduce themselves, but I've kind of stalked them since they moved in. They are great, just a little loud... which I don't mind. I heard them all the way from their place to ours. It was awesome! I joked with the kids that I should really refer to them as my NEIGHbors!! Ha.

Here they are:

Stunning!

Big eaters!

Their place!

I have never seen such physical horses. They run so often in their little pack of 3.

I can't count the times I've said, "Oh, I wish I had my camera."

At the end of our street is an amazing farm next door to our new neighbors. I'd love to know the farmer, but I don't. I would secretly like for him and his wife to not have kids so I can inherit the farm.

A small view, but isn't it great?!

They too have horses, they are equally as beautiful, just not as playful.

This one looks a lot like my horse from when I was little, Holiday.

If I'm not mistaken this is a donkey. Still cute!

Forever 21... or not

Reagan has been asking if we can go to Flatirons Mall to find some shoes. It took me a while, but we went last weekend. It was my turn to take her on a date, so off to the mall we went. When we got in the car I mentioned we'd be eating at the food court... jumping with joy she squealed. I think that is so funny... we never eat at the food court, so this was a highlight. And I might mention this pizza place was slammin'! We got these crazy amazing bread sticks that were so garlicky and Parmesany... I was happy too.

Well, we never did find the shoes. However, on the way in we noticed that a store called Forever XXI was in a new place. Hmmm, if I have my Roman numerals right, that is Forever 21. One of our favorite stores and has the best deals on cute rings, my thing.

I made some observations while waiting forever in the dressing room... in the area us moms are banished to while our daughters only want us to see them clothed. Standing under what felt just like heat lamps at a buffet, I observed:

• What, you don't like them? - No! - Why? - Because they're UGLY! If you've heard this once, you've heard it a million times.
• A mom older than me in an over sized 80's shirt with a horse on the front, the length of the shirt. The shirt went almost to her knees and all I wanted to yell to her from the other end was, "Please, spare your kid some embarrassment and ditch that shirt."
• A girl saying, "It makes my hips look all the way out to here." I've so been there.
• Out in the "fresh" cool air beyond the dressing room, we saw two teenage boys in bathrobes with 3 sets of earmuffs each on their heads... like spiders. We finally realized they were playing dress up to impress their not-even-21-year-old girlfriends. We chuckled!

The kicker to my dressing room experience was this: I had been squatting down for a break against the wall by Reagan's dressing room. I offered to take a few of her non-wanted items. I grab my purse, the items, and head down the hall to hang them up. As I'm walking back I notice another banished mom took my spot. Can I tell you that not only were my feet on fire by that point. It took everything in me not to say, "Um, hell-o. That is my spot." That seemed way too immature and possibly damaging to Reagan. So instead I stood with my bootie turned to her and made it real clear she was tickin' me off. I had been in that place FAR longer than her and had earned that turf.

A couple minutes later Reagan opens the door to show me item #152. She gets big eyes, looks down, and cocks her head like, "Who is that?" In my head I yell, "A MOM WHO TOOK MY SPOT!" She let me into the dressing room, she must have felt bad for poor ol' mom who was acting like a tired toddler. She tried on a few more items and we left. That was when we saw the boys flirting with their girls, we needed that after the other mom incident.

We got a lot of laughs out of that day. Especially when Reagan tried on a dress for fun, looked cute, shut the dressing room door, re-opened it and said, "I'm stuck." I love my time with my kids. Dates are big around here, I highly recommend the one-on-one time. We plotted out the dates where we can spend money, and dates that have to be free. It has caused us to get creative for sure!!

P.S. I knew for a long time that I am not Forever 21... but I had some fun.

Cooking Club

I'm so excited, I started another cooking club. I did this with a friend of mine years ago and had such a good time, I couldn't resist round two! I love cooking and found 3 other friends who love it enough to cook with me. We'll meet every other month to cook, ditch the kitchen & go out for dinner, or BBQ with our families. We'll each take a turn teaching something new to the Club... no secret handshake, just a love of cooking.

I hosted first. My friend Sasha had mentioned wanting to learn how to make peanut sauce, so I decided to teach Thai Chicken Wraps with Peanut Sauce, Hot Sesame Greens Beans, & Ramen Cakes.

More ingredients!

~ Sous Chefs Sasha and Kendra ~

Getting the filling for the wraps started.

Pondering all things cooking... or just chattin'!

Kendra, well done!

Sasha was on those green beans and did a great job

with the peanut sauce! She even liked it!

The Ramen Cake was all Janet's, look how it is getting nice and toasty.

Kendra, Sasha, Janet and me... the Cooking Club!

Janet's Ramen Cake was yummy.

I made it again for my family and I wished she had!!

We ended our meal with Thai Fortune Cookies and ice cream. Words of wisdom from a  Disney movie: Shangi Hi, Hong Kong, egg foo young, fortune cookie always wong (wrong). 

I can't wait for their turns to teach me something new! Cheers to cooking!!

Tooth Fairy

Two Fridays ago Tennison lost his tooth at school. On Saturday I looked at Scott and said, "Tooth Fairy?" He looked at me with a blank, slightly panicked stare. I turned to Tennison, "So, did the Tooth Fairy come last night?" With great confidence he says, "Oh man, I left my tooth at school. I bet she'll come to my desk, I left it on my tote." Oh, yes, I bet she will. I look at Reagan and mouth, Text Dad!

On Monday afternoon I asked Tennison if the Tooth Fairy came? "Oh! Oh! Yeah! She did! Let me get it." He was wild and happy. He got out a note and a dollar.

 A hand written note from the one and only Tooth Fairy!

Too cool!!

When he was done reading the note and showing me the dollar he sniffed it. "Yep, it even smells like Tooth Fairy." He's convinced, I'm convinced.

At the end of that week, he got to celebrate a school victory - they collected close to 200 coats for a coat drive - with Crazy Hair Day. With the length of this boys hair, we had fun!!

You're not kidding Ten, it is TOADILY INSANE!

And you look awesome.

I think we all are loving this age for Tennison and that we still have a "little" person in the house. He makes us laugh (makes some of us cry) and keeps us hoppin'! I couldn't imagine my life with out him. I hope he never grows up!!





A Witness

Have you seen the movie Shall We Dance? staring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez? Here is an overview I found online if you haven't seen it: A lawyer's life and marriage take an unexpected turn when he follows a woman to a dance studio and begins to take lessons and finds he has a passion for dance. His wife thinks he is having an affair and hires a detective to follow him. When Susan Sarandon sits down to talk with the detective (played by Richard Jenkins, he was hilarious) she asks him:

• Why is it, do you think, that people get married?
• Passion.
• No.
• Why then?
• Because we need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, I mean what does any ONE life really mean? But in a marriage you're promising to care about everything - the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it, all the time, every day. You're saying, 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.'

I rewound that part over and over in order to write that down, I love it and need to remind myself of it. I am the witness to Scott's life and I'm so glad I am. One thing he has always loved is Jeeps. For his birthday I borrowed our good friend Craig's Jeep to fulfill a dream of Scott's.

Tennison and I showed up at work and gave his

administrative assistant clues to get him outside.

This is what he came out to...

I had to remind him it was for the weekend a few times!

He took it for a quick spin right away. Look at that face!

We drove and drove to get the most of his time... here are his biggest fans.

We stopped for a picnic up near the Poudre River.

A little wind blown and tired, they were troopers.

The coolest fence along our trek.

Scott went out for an early morning drive up to Horsetooth. He was in heaven!

Fulfilling dreams together

and making sure our lives will not go unnoticed.



Oompa - Nerd - Dog!

What a Hallowleen it was in the Fort! We had a great time. Let me start with our pumpkin painting afternoon. We didn't get to a pumpkin patch this year due to the snow and painting them turned out great!

Every year we face the "I don't know what to wear" saga. This year we had a wiener, I mean winner... x3!! We had fun last night and even invited a cup of Fro Yo and a Greek Goddess. We trick-or-treated in short sleeves, flip flops and light coats. What a great weather year!!

The cutest trick-or-treaters in the 'hood!

Our favorite nerd!

 

 

Oompa-Loompa Extraordinaire!

He was determined to be a Hot Dog with a fro!!

We went to a coffee shop for a costume contest. The adult winner gets a free cuppa joe a week for a year. I wore... NO STARBUCKS with a Truman's coffeehouse cup sleeve on my head... I was kissing up!

Until next year and the "I don't know what to wear" saga begins again.